It occurred to Shakespeare that Boltfoot seemed disappointed. Well, that was not his concern. ‘Go to it, Boltfoot.’
‘Master, you have another visitor. A fine-dressed gentleman, by name of Severin Tort.’
Shakespeare frowned. He knew the name, of course. Severin Tort was a lawyer renowned for his unparalleled knowledge of the laws governing contracts and covenants between merchants. It was said he would have been made a judge by now were it not for his quiet insistence on clinging to the old faith.
‘Well, bring him through, fetch brandy – and then deal with the maids.’
Severin Tort was lean and short with a lawyer’s clever eyes. Too clever to trust, perhaps. He wore black, broken only by the white lawn ruffs at his throat and cuffs and the silver sheen of his hair. He had a strangely modest and restrained air about him for one accustomed to arguing cases against the most learned men in the realm.
Shakespeare proffered his hand in greeting. ‘Mr Tort, it is a pleasure to welcome you to my home. Naturally, I have heard of you.’
‘Indeed, and I have heard much of you, Mr Shakespeare. I know you were a Gray’s Inn man, which is my own alma mater. I must thank you for receiving me unannounced.’
‘Will you sit down? Mr Cooper will bring us brandy presently.’
Tort took a chair halfway down the long table. He sat neatly, his hands loosely clasped on the tabletop. ‘You will be wondering why I am here, but before I reveal anything I must tell you that it is a confidential matter. I would ask that you say nothing outside these walls.’
‘Mr Tort, that will depend on what you say. I cannot give you such a pledge without knowing more.’
Boltfoot brought in a tray with a flask of brandy and two glass goblets. Shakespeare nodded to him to leave and indicated that he should close the door after him. He poured a brandy for his guest and one for himself.
‘What if I were to tell you that it concerns Katherine Giltspur?’
Shakespeare frowned. The name meant nothing to him.
‘You probably know her better as Katherine Whetstone.’
The name hung there. It sucked the air from Shakespeare’s body. Had he heard correctly?
Tort repeated the name. ‘Katherine Whetstone. You do know her, I think?’
Know her? He knew the name as well as his own. Kat Whetstone. He had loved her. They had been lovers for over two years. ‘Yes, I know her – knew her,’ he said.
She had lived with him, in this house, and they were as good as man and wife. Indeed, he had begun to assume that eventually they would be married. And then one day he returned from his work in Walsingham’s office and she was no longer here. All she had left was a note. Do not look for me, John. This life of yours is not for me. We always knew that, which is why we never made vows. God be with you. Your loving Kat.
‘Good. It is as I thought, sir.’
The heat in the room was suddenly overpowering. Shakespeare looked into Tort’s shrewd eyes, seeking some clue as to his reason for being here. Did the lawyer know what he was doing, reopening this bloody wound? Even eight months away touring France, the Low Countries and the Italies had not repaired the tear in Shakespeare’s soul. He still thought of Kat every day. A glimpse of fair hair, a laugh in the street, any manner of looks and sounds could bring her lovely face to mind, for it had never faded from his imagining. He conjured up a smile for the benefit of his guest.
‘Kat Whetstone. Yes, of course I know her – but I have neither seen nor heard of her in two years.’ His voice was brisk with affected indifference. ‘I was surprised to hear her name.’
‘But you know her well?’
Shakespeare did not answer the question, though he could have said: We took some comfort and pleasure in each other’s company. Our bodies were as one. For that was what it was – comfort and pleasure and the joys of the flesh, but never love; not to her, surely never love. Why did he still try to convince himself thus? Of course he had loved her, although he had never told her as much. He framed a question of his own for Tort.
‘From her new name I take it she is now married?’
‘She is widowed, very recently.’
‘Married and widowed? This is sad news indeed . . .’
Tort’s surprise was clear. ‘Have you heard none of this? Her late husband was Mr Nicholas Giltspur, a merchant of great wealth and renown. Surely you have heard of their great riches? They have more gold and silver than any other merchant in London. And the Giltspur Diamond? Everyone must know of that. Mr Giltspur’s death is the talk of the city.’
Shakespeare had, of course, heard of the great diamond, but had heard nothing of the death, having travelled back and forth across the narrow sea these past weeks. He shook his head. ‘I have heard his name, though I have never met him. And I certainly know nothing of his death. I have been away much . . .’ He trailed off. ‘You mean, she is Nick Giltspur’s widow?’ He wanted to laugh at the irony. Kat Whetstone, who had pledged never to marry, had attached herself to one of the wealthiest men in England. But then his humour turned to dust as he began wonder why an esteemed advocate should be bringing such news. When did lawyers ever bear good tidings?
‘Have you truly not heard of the court case, Mr Shakespeare?’
‘Court case? I know nothing of any death or any court case. I have been deeply involved in my work, Mr Tort.’ Trailing Gilbert Gifford from Rheims to Paris and Rouen – then to England, then back to France and finally, this week, returning once more to London; all the time ensuring that Gifford was content. These were matters that could not be discussed in this company. ‘And so the tittle-tattle of the streets has passed me by. But you have worried me. Please, tell me what this is about. Anything pertaining to Kat Whetstone will always be of interest to me.’
‘She has been married and widowed within the space of a two-month. Her husband was murdered last week. Stabbed with a long-bladed bollock-dagger near Fishmongers’ Hall, on Thames Street. The killer was caught at the scene of the crime and made no attempt to conceal his guilt. I would entreat you to brace yourself, Mr Shakespeare, for indeed I bring shocking news.’
Shakespeare downed his brandy, then poured himself another. Whatever was coming next, he did not want to hear it. ‘Continue, Mr Tort.’
‘The killer was a wretch named Will Cane. Not only did he confess his own part in the terrible deed but immediately implicated Mistress Giltspur. Under questioning and in open court, he said she had offered him a hundred pounds to kill her husband: ten pounds to be paid before the murder and ninety afterwards. He was quite clear and consistent on this – and he said it all without coercion of any kind.’
‘God’s blood, no!’
‘I am sorry, Mr Shakespeare.’
‘Is this true?’
Tort nodded.
‘No,’ Shakespeare said, as much to himself as to the lawyer. ‘I cannot believe such a thing of Kat. It is preposterous. Beyond madness.’
‘No, well, neither can I believe it. But we are in the minority. To the rest of the world, she is the basest example of womanhood, a succubus and she-devil, a murdering hell-hag. She is now a fugitive, wanted as an accessory. Meanwhile, the killer is due to be hanged. If she is apprehended, she will doubtless follow him to the scaffold within days or hours – unless the mob gets to her first, for I fear they would tear her apart. And so she must remain hidden.’
Shakespeare was silent for a few moments, still trying to absorb the hideous news. Dozens of questions welled up, but one overrode the others. ‘I ask again, Mr Tort. Why are you here? Why have you come to me?’
Tort sipped his brandy. ‘Mistress Giltspur has asked me to come to you, that is why.’
‘Then you know where she is?’ Shakespeare demanded.
The lawyer avoided the question. ‘She believes you have influence and powers of investigation . . . that you may be able to help her.’
‘Help her? How? She cannot believe I have any influence to remove a charge of murder.’
; ‘She has some belief – or hope, at least – that you could discover the truth behind this foul murder and clear her name. Before she is arrested.’
‘But if she is guilty, as it seems—’ He stopped in mid-flow. Kat – a murderess? There was a ruthless, ambitious streak to her
– but murder? ‘Mr Tort, what is your connection to the case?’
‘Though I am not versed in criminal law, she is my client, as was Nick. He would have expected no less of me than to help her. As to her whereabouts, it is possible I might have a way to get word to her. But before I say more, I must repeat my request: that this conversation is confidential and will not be repeated outside these walls.’
‘Very well, but speak.’ ‘I will take that as a pledge. Kat says I can trust you. I pray it is so, for yes, I can take you to her.’
Shakespeare stiffened. Assisting a murderer to evade justice was in itself a capital offence. ‘I am a very busy man,’ he said. He was Walsingham’s man night and day. There would be no respite in the days ahead now that Goodfellow Savage was in the country plotting to fulfil his treacherous vow. But he could not say no to Kat Whetstone. An image of her lying across his bed came to him. The early-morning light slipping in through the shutters and lighting her generous breasts. She was snoring softly, her lips parted to reveal the gap in her teeth. The memory stirred him and haunted him in equal measure.
Tort seemed to take his acquiescence as read. ‘But you will go to her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Let us meet on the morrow. I will come for you and we will ride together. But first you might try to talk to the killer, Cane. He awaits death in Newgate. I believe his execution is to be at Smithfield, and soon. Perhaps you could persuade him to tell the truth. At least you might be able to form some judgement of him and try to discern the reason behind his foul lie.’
‘Have you spoken to him?’
‘I went to him, but he would not utter a word, nor even raise his eyes to meet mine. He remained slumped in his chains, unmoving. And so I left him to his fate.’
Shakespeare studied Tort, uncertain of him. ‘You believe her to be innocent?’
‘Believe is a strong word. Let us say I hope she is not guilty. I confess the evidence stands against her.’ He thought about what he had said, then shook his head. ‘No, I cannot believe her guilty.’
‘I will go to the condemned man directly. As for meeting Kat, how far is she from here?’
‘Fifteen minutes’ ride, no more.’
‘Should we not go this evening?’
‘It is impossible. It must be tomorrow.’
‘Come to me at midday. I have a meeting in the morning, one that I cannot miss.’
Tort rose from the bench. ‘Thank you, sir.’
‘You still have not fully explained what she is to you, Mr Tort.’
‘As I said, she is my client.’
Shakespeare took his hand again, wondering just how much this attorney-at-law was holding back. He was certainly concealing a great deal more than he revealed.
‘And I beg you, be circumspect, Mr Shakespeare, for she is being hunted most strenuously. And Justice Young is leading the pack.’
Chapter 4
The Newgate keeper shook his grizzled head. ‘You’re too late, master. He’s gone to Smithfield to dance his jig.’
‘How long?’
‘Half an hour since.’
Shakespeare uttered a curse and ran to his horse. Within moments he was remounted and kicking the beast into a sharp canter northwards along the narrow confines and low overhangs towards Pie Corner. Within two minutes, he burst into the six-acre plain that made up Smithfield, a dusty expanse where men sometimes came for livestock dealing and flesh trading and at other times for the Bartholomew Fair. Today it served another purpose: a place of execution.
He urged on the animal past the ancient buildings of St Bartholomew’s Hospital. Ahead of him a crowd packed the centre of the open land. Traders had set up stalls to sell cakes and ale and hot mead. Some executions brought out the dark humour in onlookers, but this day there was nothing but anger.
All eyes were on the black wooden scaffold, where a figure suspended from a length of rope jerked and struggled in its ugly death throes. The crowd was agitated, shouting and waving their fists, wanting him to suffer. Shakespeare drove his bay stallion onwards, pushing aside men, women and children. People uttered oaths and spat at him as he passed.
He slid from the horse and handed the reins to a bewildered onlooker. Shakespeare was aware that the eyes of the hangman, his assistant, the priest and the law officers were all on him.
The condemned man had ceased his dance. He hung limp, his bound body swaying in the summer breeze, but the noise of the crowd showed no sign of abating. The murderer’s death was not enough; they wanted yet more vengeance, more pain. The officers braced their halberds and pikes menacingly to deter the throng from surging forward: the ugly mood had been anticipated. Shakespeare strode up onto the platform.
‘Is he dead?’ he demanded of the hangman.
‘Aye, dead enough, but we’ll leave him hanging an hour.’
‘It was Will Cane, the murderer?’
‘Yes, master. If you have brought a reprieve, you are too late. And I thank the Lord for it, for this lot – ’ he nodded towards the crowd – ‘would have ripped him apart rather than see him pardoned.’
‘No, no reprieve. I wanted to talk with him before he died.’
‘Then you have had a wasted journey. Who are you?’
‘John Shakespeare. I am an assistant secretary in the office of Sir Francis Walsingham.’
‘What would Mr Secretary want of a common felon like Will Cane?’
‘Did he say anything – make any confession?’
The hangman laughed. ‘He did.’ He nodded towards the clergyman, who stood clasping a Bible at the edge of the scaffold. ‘Ask his confessor or any member of this crowd.’
‘I’ll ask you, hangman. What did he say?’
‘Told it all, about the lewd wife. Couldn’t stop him. Spoke so much he had a coughing fit, and so I cured his cough for ever. And you may now call me Good Doctor Hangman, if it please you.’ He laughed aloud at his own jest, and his sly assistant grinned like a fox.
Shakespeare turned away, revolted, and directed his attention to the cleric.
The well-fed vicar, who wore a black cassock and a black cap on his head, met Shakespeare’s eye.
‘Well? What is your version, reverend sir?’
‘He said he was a poor sinner and commended his soul to God, desiring that he might be forgiven his transgressions, a thing I consider highly unlikely given the monstrous nature of his crime.’
‘Is that all?’
‘By no means.’ The vicar raised his voice and indicated to the assembled onlookers, who roared and brandished fists. ‘As these good folk will all testify, he said he wished to go to his death with no lie on his lips and so he repeated the assertions made in court, that he was a hired killer, and that he had been offered a hundred pounds for the murder. Mr Cane was a wicked, wretched man, but at least in his final moments on earth he named the confederate in the heinous crime. Her turn here will come soon enough.’
‘Whom did he name?’
‘Why, the widow, Katherine Giltspur.’
At the name the crowd howled their loathing. This was a crime that struck at the very heart of all they understood and held dear: a wife murdering a husband. This was a knife to the sanctity of the family and the hearth, God-given things not to be besmirched.
‘You see, sir,’ the cleric continued. ‘The whole of London knows her to be a black-hearted whore, lower than the snakes of the field, more cruel than the scavenger birds of the air. There can be no more unnatural crime before God or man than the killing of a husband by the woman pledged to give him succour.’
Shakespeare looked down at the baying crowd. Half had their eyes fixed on the hanged felon and the other half were watching him, wondering, per
haps, which way to turn their ire. He cursed; a dying man’s confession was sacrosanct. No one would doubt it. Innocent or guilty, Kat’s cause was hopeless.
He strode over to the hanged man and pulled the hood from his head. A pair of bulging, lifeless eyes stared back at him from a blue, bulbous face incongruous above the thin, hemp-encircled neck. He was a man of about forty years of age, dark-haired with a reddish beard. His face was engorged and yet scrawny, as though he had not eaten in a week. His tongue lolled, red and encrusted. Ugly streams of blood dripped from his nostrils and the corners of his grimacing mouth. Shakespeare doubted that he could have weighed a hundredweight. He was a poor specimen. The world would be none the worse for his passing.
Shakespeare turned back to the cleric. ‘Did he say anything else? Did you see him at Newgate before he came here?’
‘No. There was nothing else.’
‘Then say your prayers for his soul.’ And I will pray for Kat’s.
‘No, sir. I will not pray for his soul. I will pray for his eternal damnation, in the fire of pain, for ever, with the she-devil who paid him.’
In the morning, Shakespeare came down from his chamber and discovered a woman with a broom sweeping up the rushes in the parlour. She bowed to him nervously. It was not the maid he had told Boltfoot to hire, but the other, younger woman. He frowned at her, and she scurried away.
‘Boltfoot!’
His assistant limped in from the kitchen, dragging his club foot. ‘Master?’
‘That woman is not Mistress Rymple.’
‘No, master. It is the other one, Jane Cawston.’
‘And yet I told you to hire the Rymple woman and send Miss Cawston on her way with a shilling.’
‘As I recall, Mr Shakespeare, you told me to hire Mistress Rymple if she could start without delay. When I asked her, she told me she would need a week, which I considered to be a delay.’
‘And so you told her the job was not hers? You took this decision on yourself?’
Boltfoot did not look at all unnerved. ‘What was I to do? You were engaged with the lawyer Mr Tort, master. I thought you would not thank me to disturb you with such a trivial matter. And then you raced out as though pursued by the hounds of hell . . .’
John Shakespeare 07 - Holy Spy Page 2