‘I believe you are sceptical, Mr Shakespeare, but hear me out. This is Philip’s great stain, the sin that will consign him to perdition.’
‘As you will.’
‘In 1570, Montigny is still alive, held in the castle of Simancas to the north of Madrid, about a hundred miles from Philip’s great monastic palace, the Escorial. This is the year that King Philip takes the last of his four brides, Anne of Austria, his niece.
‘By this time, King Philip has determined that Montigny must be executed. But then fate intervenes. While Anne of Austria is en route to Spain to become Philip’s queen, she stops at Antwerp and there meets Montigny’s mother, the dowager Countess of Hoorn. The countess has already lost her elder son to the Council of Blood and now she goes down on her knees as a supplicant, begging Anne to intercede on behalf of her imprisoned younger son. Anne is touched by the plea and promises that her first act on arrival at Philip’s court in Spain will be to solicit mercy for Montigny. She is certain that such a request will not be denied to his new queen for she knows she is a beautiful woman and has the wiles to gain whatever favour she wishes from a man.’
Shakespeare was about to interrupt, but Perez held up his soft, mottled hand.
‘Be patient, Mr Shakespeare. All will become clear. Now, before Anne departs on the long last leg of her journey, the Duke of Alba hears of her vow to the Countess of Hoorn and is alarmed. He knows the King’s will, which accords with his own; all such rebels must die, especially the Flemish noblemen such as Montigny, whom they see as ringleaders. Without delay, Alba sends a messenger ahead to the Escorial to warn Philip of the plea that his young bride intends to make.
‘Philip is horrified. He feels compromised. If he orders the execution now, it will be clear to Anne what has happened. That would not be a good start to a marriage. And so he determines that Montigny must die by other means. It must be quiet and secret and be made to look like some illness.’
‘So Philip determines to murder Montigny. I still do not understand…’
Perez was not to be stopped. ‘A letter signed by Philip is sent to the governor of Simancas castle, ordering the killing and giving details of how it is to be concealed. I have seen this letter. It specifies that word is to be put out that the prisoner is seriously ill. Every day for a week a physician is to be admitted to the castle with remedies for Montigny’s supposed ailments. The governor of the castle follows his instructions faithfully. The physician is brought in very publicly day by day so that his presence is noted. Then comes the day of death. Imagine, if you will, the dark-shadowed stone walls of this remote castle. At midnight the brutish executioner arrives with his garotte concealed beneath his black cape. He is welcomed with wine by the governor. They speak in whispers. No one must know what is happening.
‘Some time between two and three of the clock, when the castle sleeps, the governor and his squat, strong-armed guest walk silently through the dungeons to the cell where Montigny slumbers. He wakes in a panic to find the governor and a masked man staring down at him. The governor tells him that the King has granted him a special dispensation. He will not, after all, be executed publicly in the manner of commoners, but will die quietly here in his cell in a style befitting his noble status. He is telling Montigny that he is to be murdered, here and now, and that he should be thankful for the favour! But first he must write a last letter to his wife, as if composed on his sickbed, to prove that he has died naturally. It will bring her comfort, he is told, to believe that he has not suffered a violent death. He is left with no option; with a heavy heart he writes his last will and testament and sends his love and blessings to his family, revealing nothing about the true nature of his impending doom. There is no priest to administer the last rites but he is told he may pray. He falls to his knees and is about to commend his soul to God when the assassin strikes from behind, looping the garotte about his neck and twisting the rope and rod with his blacksmith’s muscles, choking the life from his victim in silence.
‘The executioner slips away into the night and the governor sends a letter to Philip to tell of the sad death of the prisoner from fever. The people of Simancas and the officers of the castle believe this, for they saw the physician day by day. They do not see the body, nor the purplish weal on the neck, for Montigny is already in his winding sheet, ready for interment. The king affects sorrow, and the world thinks no more of Floris van Montmorency, Baron of Montigny. If Anne of Austria and Montigny’s mother have suspicions, what can they say? What can they prove?’
At last, Perez paused for effect. He looked at Shakespeare and shrugged his shoulders lightly as if all should now be clear to him. ‘And there you have it. That is the kind of man we have as king of half the world. That is Philip the Second of Spain. A man who would kill without honour and hide behind the skirts of women. What do you say to that, Mr Shakespeare? Will this tale not bring me to court? Is it not worth Cecil’s gold?’
Shakespeare struggled for something to say. Yes, this was of great interest, but nothing more. The Queen would listen to it avidly and clap her hands with glee and horror. Yes, it would cause a sensation at court. It could be used against Philip. It would stiffen the resolve of Protestants and cause consternation among Catholics. In its way, it had value. But in the greater scheme of international politicking, it was a trifle. And at home, it was of no significance to the safety of the realm and no relevance to the succession. Compared to the story told by the old nun, it was as nothing.
‘It is a hideous story, Don Antonio. But what has this to do with Mary, Queen of Scots and the secret of her son by Bothwell?’
Perez, exhausted by the telling of his story, had opened the lid to his box and was sifting through the glass vials. At last he plucked one out, removed its little cork stopper and tipped the contents down his throat. He closed his eyes and reclined on the bench, the hazy sun full on his pallid, mottled face.
‘Don Antonio?’
‘I do not know what you are saying, Mr Shakespeare. There, you have the great secret. My life is worth nothing now. Philip has tried to kill me these many years for fear that I would disclose it. Now, he will divert every assassin in his armoury towards me.’
‘Don Antonio, we were led to believe you had information of the son born to Mary of Scots in the castle of Lochleven.’
Perez breathed deeply, luxuriating in the warmth of the opium spirit as it spread through his body. ‘You are talking in riddles, Mr Shakespeare… What we need is a coalition against this murderous Philip and his empire of death. We must bring in the Dutch, the French, the Portingales and the Mussalmans of Turkey…’
‘You sent a message to Sir Robert Cecil that you had a secret to sell, one pertaining to the royal succession. The tale of Montigny has no bearing on the English Crown. How could it?’
‘I said I had a great secret to sell. I said nothing of succession.’
Shakespeare looked at him hard. A cloud passed across the face of the sun. No. Of course he had said no such thing, for it was not Perez who had given the message to Cecil that there was a secret for sale. That task would have been given to his secretary, who would most certainly have listened to Ana Cabral. Perez was nothing to do with any of this. He was a bystander, a convenience. This was all about Ana Cabral and the old nun. Perez could propose his grand schemes for the overthrow of Philip, yet all the while his mistress was busy with the real plot. Perez had been no more than a ticket of passage to England. Without knowing it, every action he took was abetting the very regime he wished to destroy. Shakespeare stood up. He could not wait here a moment longer.
‘I remember such a tale, Mr Shakespeare,’ Perez said languidly, eyes now closed. ‘In the late sixties, it was whispered in court circles that a child had been brought from Scotland to Spain, but I paid such tittle-tattle no heed…’
Shakespeare was not listening. He had already bowed curtly to Don Antonio and was now running through the garden towards the water-stairs. He needed to bring in the Cabral woman without de
lay.
Chapter 28
The oarsman brought the tilt-boat smoothly alongside the little pier beside Essex’s private water-stairs. ‘Greenwich,’ Shakespeare said brusquely. The boat rocked and the water lapped at its bows as he settled into the seat at the back. ‘Why are there not two of you? I’m in a hurry.’
‘My copesmate ails, master. The bloody flux. But the tide is with us…’
‘Put muscle into it and you shall have an extra groat.’
Boltfoot felt that death must come soon and that it would be a kindness. He could scarce struggle for breath now. The pain in his back and neck and bound arms had turned into an agonising numbness, where feeling seemed to be slipping into everlasting non-feeling.
What little fetid air he could snatch through the metal pipe went to his lungs in short rasps. He could not have screamed even if he wished to. Was he conscious any more? He was not certain. He no longer wondered what was happening. His only thought was Jane and little John, his baby son. They were what kept him alive, they were his only reason to survive.
Occasionally, he opened his eyes. A tiny spot of light came through the tube, but all it offered was a charcoal dimness instead of utter black. He had no way of knowing how many hours he had been here, but thought it must still be daylight outside.
There was a noise above him. A scraping sound. He gasped at the stale air. The tube was pulled out from above and a spray of dry earth fell through the hole into the coffin. It dusted down across his face, spreading into his eyes, up his nostrils and into his mouth. He tried to spit it out, but more came in, so he closed his lips. Now he could not breathe at all. The gritty earth was at the back of his throat. He began to retch uncontrollably and his chest heaved.
From above, the scraping continued. He vaguely realised that someone was clearing the earth from the coffin. It seemed they were digging him up, but his life hung like the last ember buried in the ashes of a fire that has been left untended overnight.
Suddenly the lid of the coffin was levered off. Boltfoot spat and coughed out as much soil as he could. He tried to open his eyes, but they were thick with dust and the brilliance of the light was unbearable. He felt his body being lifted by a number of hands.
‘He has risen from the dead.’
The voice was Scottish, high-pitched and coarse.
‘Why, I do declare it a miracle.’
Without ceremony, he was flung to the ground. He blinked open his eyes. He could see now that he was close to a fragrant fire of sticks and branches. With an effort, he turned to one side and saw the three black-robed men. They were standing in a semicircle, looking down at him with curiosity, as if wondering what to do next with their prize.
Then he noticed something else about them, something he had not been able to discern before his entombment. Only one of these three Scots was a man. The other two were young, fair-haired women with brutish faces. From the similarity of their faces and masculine build, he took them to be sisters and thought them barely out of their teen years.
‘Do we have a little potion to revive him, sister Agnes?’
‘I think we do, sister Gellie.’
‘Look at him. Do you not think him wide-eyed beneath the soot and soil? Maybe he is surprised to be alive…’
‘And to be welcomed by two such lovely sisters and their fine brother, with the cooper’s image all prepared in wax with his hair.’
‘Give him the remedy, sister Agnes. Is it mixed well? Give it to him and let him wonder at our craft as we cut him and pass him over the fire nine times. Let us call on Dog to help us in this and we shall kiss his red buttocks and stroke his red tail. Then we shall see how this cooper do sweat and whether he waste away and melt as his wax image do…’
The waterman struck just beyond the bridge. They were in mid-stream. The river was crowded with many different boats and sailing vessels. A barge pulled by a boat with a dozen strong oarsmen had just passed, creating a heavy swell in its wake. The tilt-boat rocked madly. The waterman stumbled back beneath the canopy, as if trying to regain his balance.
Shakespeare held out his arms to steady him, but found himself instead being dragged forward and, in one deft movement, flung over the side into the grey, swelling depths of the river.
He sank into the dark water, frantically kicking and pulling with his arms to find the surface. But he was disoriented, dragged by the tide and his encumbrances — sword, pistols, boots, clothes. He could not discern whether he was going down or up. Suddenly, he broke surface and gulped in air. The first thing he saw was the blade of the oar descending towards his head. He tried to duck back beneath the surface, but he was not fast enough. The hard, heavy wood hit the crown of his head like a hammer.
The blow knocked him sideways through the water. He floundered, flailing with his arms, but did not lose consciousness. The oar was coming at him again. This time he dived down before it hit. He tried to swim away from the boat, fighting against the current. The water was murky, and he could not see. At last, he came up again. He was no more than four yards from the boat. The oarsman had a pistol. He was pressing a single, heavy ball, wrapped in cartridge paper, into its muzzle. Shakespeare dived again, but this time he headed back towards the boat. Its shape loomed above him, narrow and dark against the surface light.
Shakespeare and the tilt-boat were both being dragged downstream through the teeming shipping lane, past the Tower. With an immense push of both arms, Shakespeare thrust upwards on one side of the boat, trying to upturn it. It swayed slightly, but it was far too heavy to capsize.
The waterman looked down at him. He had the pistol loaded and primed. Their eyes were barely three feet apart. Shock registered as Shakespeare saw the face of the man trying to kill him. It was a face he had not registered when he hired this boat, for whoever looked at a waterman’s face? The face broke into a grin as he pulled the trigger.
The blast of powder rent the air and the ball spat harmlessly into the water. The waterman peered into the smoke. He must have hit Shakespeare, but he could see nothing through the powder-fug. Then he looked back. Shakespeare had somehow contrived to emerge twenty yards behind him and was rapidly receding.
Shakespeare clung to the chain of the buoy and gazed at the tilt-boat disappearing downstream. One moment he had been about to die, the next the buoy had hit him and he had thrown his arms about it and held on.
He was not far from the southern bank of the Thames, just east of Horsey Down. But in this ebb tide, he had no chance of swimming ashore. If he let go of this buoy he would be swept downriver until death took him.
A small wherry was approaching. Shakespeare waved at it. With great skill, the two oarsmen came alongside and threw a mooring rope around the wooden buoy.
‘We saw that,’ one of the young oarsmen said as they hauled Shakespeare aboard. ‘You’re lucky to be alive; he was trying to do for you.’
Shakespeare nodded. He knew he had been most fortunate. But why, he wondered, as he slumped, drenched, into the oarsman’s arms, had Richard Baines been trying to kill him?
The three black-clad Scots had a long, three-inch thick branch of ash. It was strong young wood. They thrust it between Boltfoot’s bindings — arms and legs — so he was like a whole pig ready to be spit-roasted over the fire.
On one side of the fire, which was low in flame but scorching in intensity, they had driven a stake into the ground. At the top there was a deep notch. They lifted Boltfoot and put one end of the ash branch into the notch. The man and one of the women gripped the other end, close to Boltfoot’s head and began to chant as the other woman danced around the fire playing a Jew’s harp.
Boltfoot was breathing more easily now. He felt like laughing out loud at these preposterous people, but he was not at all sure that was wise given his precarious position at their mercy.
Suddenly the woman with the Jew’s harp shuddered, fell to her knees and threw up her gown to display her naked arse, like an animal in rut. It was like a cue at the playhouse for
the other two to chant louder and begin to bring Boltfoot around across the fire. They held him there, slung low so that his back was no more than a few inches above the red, fiery heat. Involuntarily he tried to arch his back away from the unbearable burning pain, but to no avail. He was held there for ten seconds that felt like ten minutes, his teeth clenched against the scream that his throat and very being longed to utter.
They moved him on, to the other side of the fire. The fire had caused agony such as he had never felt before. And he knew that it would come again. Nine times across the fire, they had said. Nine times. He exhaled a long, straggling breath. In front of him the woman with the Jew’s harp was on all fours on the ground, her gown clutched up around her waist so that her pink nakedness was exposed. It seemed to him that her grunting and panting was the hunger of a bitch in heat. She was offering herself up, to some unseen presence. Begging to be taken by the devil himself.
Shakespeare was still soaked through when the wherrymen landed him at Greenwich. He wondered, vaguely, whether the involuntary drinking of the putrid Thames water might do for him. For the present, however, he had more pressing concerns.
The races were all done with. If Baines was here, there was no sign of him. As for the Queen and her courtiers, they had long since departed back to the confines of the palace. Only the common folk were still in the park, eating, drinking and enjoying the entertainments in the late afternoon sunshine.
Shakespeare found the Vidame de Chartres near the palace stables. The French nobleman was ensuring that Conquistadora was well looked after for her journey back to the stables at Wanstead, where she was now to be housed. The vidame held up the golden spur he had won for his victory. ‘Given me by your Queen’s own fair hand. I told you the horse was no nag, sir.’
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