Rotten at the Heart

by Bartholomew Daniels

  A large man to my front, thickly muscled and much weathered from long years at sail, laughed. “And I am some dainty mermaid come to shore to find your love,” he said, and he swung hard at me with a staff, which I ducked under, hearing his fellows laughing as they closed. I swung my blade in a circle, some surprising them at my crouched level and catching one of them below his knees and cutting him deep so that he fell. Then I felt a blow fall hard across my back just as I rose, my sword almost coming from my hands. But that blow thrust me forward, and past the swipe of a short cudgel such that I was able to swing my sword up, cutting the arm which held that weapon, and could then step past him, escaping the crew’s closing circle for a brief moment – except that I had broached it toward the river, them all arrayed now to my back and blocking any escape. I ran onto the dock, thinking that, on its narrow confines, my assailants would be able to confront me only in ones or twos. But then, turning back, I could see Carey closing hard at the front of his men, the horses crashing into the crew, his sword flashing down on my muscled mermaid and having his arm near off at his shoulder.

  “Stop!” screamed Mary. At which the melee paused. “My defeat clear, I will have no more suffer in my cause. We are your prisoners, sirs.”

  “And I am a one-armed mermaid,” the large man said in a shocked voice, seated now in his own blood, “and ruined for the sea.”

  CHAPTER 35

  The chests taken from the ship lay scattered open across the dock in the lowering sun. I had been with Carey some hours as the chests were unloaded and broken open. They were solid and careful locked, and we found in them the priest’s vestments, chalices, Latin bibles, and the other accoutrements of his religion, and also several bottles of that good port for which the Spanish are rightly known. Now I sat with Carey on the dock’s end, looking out on the river, each with a bottle of that rich Spanish wine.

  “I must admit you looked surprising fierce in your battle, Will,” Carey said, “though unschooled, to be sure. Still, two men cut and you untouched.”

  I felt across my back a hard reminder of the blow I had suffered – which reminder, come morning, would be felt harder still. “I would not say untouched, sir, but as my goal was to stay alive until your arrival, I will call my action a success.”

  He raised his bottle to me in salute. “You have been brave and true in my service, sir, and your company can count me your faithful patron all my days.”

  I nodded. “I have learned much of myself in your service and would count me in your debt for that knowledge alone, save for much blood and suffering that has fallen to my hands in this exercise.”

  “A hand unstained is a hand unused, sir. Who will try will fail, but who will not can scarce be counted a man.”

  We drank some moments in companionable silence, hearing behind us the sounds of the day’s commerce drawing to its end, the mongers trying to entice some final custom in their last minutes, some shutters already slamming closed.

  “Even knowing her religion and her cause, it harms me some to think of young Mary in Topcliffe’s care,” Carey said finally, “understanding her history and knowing that, were I her, I might easy have reached a similar end.”

  That thought cut hard, and I had a long pull at my bottle to still it. “We think ourselves loyal to a crown or a god, but in the end, I think, can only true serve our own hearts.”

  “She has served her own and brave,” he said. “Still, I cannot say I am ungrateful that we ruined what further mission she must have had. Sad as I am for my father’s suffering at her hands, I cannot think that her entire purpose.”

  And I knew sudden that I had watched this tale unfold as does an audience – swept up in its events and in that strong current, watching only each scene as it played out instead of thinking on the story’s whole.

  “Your father dead, she still stayed long in this country, even early suspecting that we questioned her role,” I said. “And yet now, nothing new accomplished, she would bolt for Spain?”

  Carey shrugged. “And to your credit, sir, as it was your investigation that made plain her mission.”

  I shook my head. “Yours as much as my own, and Topcliffe’s, too, as I would never have suspected Spanish mischief. But no, something is amiss. That she might bolt to some new hide, that I could credit. But she seems too stern in her character to quit the country whole with some task undone due only to threat, for that smells of coward, and she does not have that scent.”

  “Sir!” One of Carey’s men called to us from the dock’s opposite end, where they made inspection of the final few chests, which seemed to hold only clothing and other such unremarkable things. “I would have you see this.”

  So, we made to the man, a small chest of Mary’s things open at his feet, the chest filled with mostly those items most intimate in their nature.

  Carey snorted. “Did her beauty so inflame thee, Snellings, that you would have your nose in her drawers?”

  The man stuttered a moment, then answered. “Look here, sir.” And he pulled down from the chest’s side a false lining, behind which were secreted several small bottles in varied colours, as one might find at an apothecary’s shop.

  And I sudden knew whole the danger in my mind before I could find even words for it, so I grabbed Carey by his arm and pulled him to his feet and toward the horses. Swinging myself into the saddle of the closest, and Carey, too, swinging aboard his own, I spurred my horse away from the river with Carey in pursuit.

  That Mary might leave note for the mercer explaining her absence rang true, for that explanation would forestall his searching for her or raising any alarm. But that she would stay late in the night to complete her sewing, and for a Queen she did clear despise, here was that moment in the play’s progress that I should have noted and did not.

  I explained the threat to Carey as we rode.

  Chapter 36

  The mercer’s shutters were closed when we arrived, and his door bolted. But Carey hammered hard at it with his fist, and the mercer opened the door some alarmed.

  “Mister Shakespeare, sir. What matter could have you here so alarmed, and outside our normal time?”

  “Those items Mary completed for our good Queen,” I said. “I would have them immediate.”

  “You actors have a reputation for your drinking, and I can smell it on you,” the mercer said, his voice now hard, “but this prank does not amuse.”

  “It is no prank, sir,” Carey answered, “and we have not time for long congress. I am the Baron Hunsdon and I tell you plain that you are either party to or have been sore used in a plot against our good Queen. You will either fetch out those garments now or I will strike you down where you stand and take them.”

  At that moment, the rest of Carey’s company – having noted our alarmed departure and so given chase – arrived, reining in their horses to our back.

  “But those are gone, sir,” said the mercer, near blubbering, “delivered to the Court this very day. What plot can there be in them?”

  Carey leapt back to his horse, me following, and turned it to his men. “Keep secure this man and building until I send word, and touch nothing.”

  And we rode hard for Whitehall.

  Our ride left many sprawled in our wake. Carey’s horses were large and trained for war and so not shy of crowds, and the streets being thickly peopled at that hour. But we arrived quick at Whitehall’s gates, and I watched amazed as Carey cleaved hard such protocols that would usual long delay our progress further.

  Challenged first by the guards at the gate, Carey leapt from his horse and drew close to them. And where I thought I had heard him stern previous, I heard now such voice as I suppose a man learns in war as he makes himself entire a weapon.

  “I am George Carey, the Second Baron Hunsdon, son of your late Lord Chamberlain. Your Queen is in dire peril, and you will have me to her immediate or I will hold bound to any consequence all who impede me.”

  The guards looked to one another, their officer finally
answering.

  “I know you, sir, and make full note of your urgency, and will have my man quick to make congress with the household. But I can assure you no threat has passed this gate, not this day, sir. Not on my watch.”

  At which Carey quick drew his sword and had the tip of it to the officer’s throat before any could make move.

  “This threat is one of guile and poisons, and it is already by you unknowing. You may let me pass and even keep my company, but I will immediate to the Queen’s quarters. And if you think other, then let us settle it here in blood.”

  There was a short pause in which those other guards present did all draw their swords and, not knowing where to point them, pointed them all at me. I hoped Carey’s argument would win the day quick or I might, as my father had long wished, end holy.

  “If you will put back your sword, sir,” the officer answered, trying hard for a voice stern, but its timbre instead much unsteady, “I will have you hence, but in our company only.”

  Carey sheathed his sword and walked hard past the man toward the palace, the guards now scrambling to form around him and me trailing the procession.

  “But what of him, sir?” the officer asked, pointing back at me.

  “He is in my service, and I in his debt.”

  Our assembly burst into the castle proper, Carey clear being familiar with its rooms and making direct toward the Queen’s quarters. The train of our company grew as we pressed toward her apartments, until finally we approached her door, Carey calling from some yards distance that he would see the Queen immediate and not be stayed.

  “But the Queen is dressing, sir!” the attendant there stationed said, rising to block Carey’s path.

  Carey planted a hand to the man’s chest – the Baron’s muscle and momentum sending the attendant far down that hall and to his backside – and burst through the first door, some of the Queen’s lady attendants there gathered and shrieking at this intrusion. But Carey was unswayed and burst through the second door, through which I could glimpse our good Queen. She stood in her stockings, farthingale and chemises, her lady holding her corset and ready to place it on her.

  Carey sank immediate to one knee, his head bowed.

  “Your Majesty, I do most humble beg you forgive this intrusion, but must ask that your lady stop immediate with your dressing, as you are at grave peril.”

  “Carey?” she said, looking down to confirm his identity. “It is you. Your father’s manners were at times some rough, and we see you do surpass him in his lesser habits.” Looking past Carey to the larger crowd beyond, she raised her brows. “While we do enjoy an audience, we would have it see less of our person.”

  Her gaze passed over those faces present, passing by me, but then snapping quick back.

  “And who is this man who you have brought to witness your Queen in her nakedness, Carey?”

  “Pardon, your Majesty?” Carey said, still on his knee and his face still to the floor in bow.

  “Oh for God’s sake man, stand. You are curious in which manners you observe and which you do not.”

  Carey stood, and the Queen made a questioning face, her hand pointed clear to me.

  “William Shakespeare, your Majesty,” he said.

  “The playwright?” she answered.

  “The same, ma’am.”

  She beckoned me with her hand, and I made into the room next to Carey, dropping to my knee and bowing too.

  “Your Majesty,” I said.

  “And are there any others we should greet in this multitude you have brought to observe us in our dressing? A tavern keeper? A bear baiter, perhaps?”

  Carey’s face blushed full red. “No, ma’am.”

  “Well,” she said, waving the guards and courtiers back, “having all the players present, we suppose we needs hear this tale. Shakespeare’s reputation being as it is, we pray it be a good one, as a fine play does oft soothe our temper, and it current does run some hot.”

  The crowd excused and the door to the room immediate closed, the Queen looked hard at Carey, having dropped the mask of patient amusement she wore for the larger audience and now speaking clear harsh.

  “Explain yourself, sir.”

  “Your Majesty, that chemise and corset, were they today delivered from your mercer?”

  She snorted, “Do you suppose, Carey, that we trouble with details of the source and delivery of our garments – taking council on that issue, perhaps, between matters of the treasury and our varied foreign entanglements?”

  “These are new today, your Majesty,” her dresser answered, “you having preferred such that we late received that were of this finer silk.”

  “I ask only as I fear them possible poisoned,” said Carey, “we having late uncovered much serious Spanish mischief, and this seeming to be its object.”

  “We?”

  “Myself and Shakespeare, your Majesty.”

  She looked at me and gave a wicked smile. “Well, sir, you having joined Carey in this unassigned office as our new intelligencer, it seems you will share equal in either his reward for saving us or his punishment for interrupting our dressing.”

  “Ma’am,” Carey said, “I beseech thee, careful remove the corset and chemise that we might make their inspection. If I am wrong, then I will glad suffer as you require. But if my thinking be true, then your life could short be forfeit.”

  “Carey, on such occasions as we may have claimed to hold our people close to our bosom, you may have took our speech too literal. If we are to be further disrobed, you and your apprentice spy shall have to be excused.” She motioned to another door past, to which we made hence and quick, it closing behind us and locking us in her closet.

  The chamber having no window, it was dark entire. After some minutes, Carey spoke.

  “The threat being so immediate, I never stopped to credit your thinking. I hope your wits be true.”

  “I think my argument sound,” I said, “though I would not have played it for these stakes.”

  After another pause, Carey spoke again.

  “I do wish they would hurry with their dressing.”

  “In truth,” I answered, “I can wait longer, as I do not rush to peril as seems your habit.”

  Carey’s breath seemed to grow laboured. “May I make you a confession in confidence?”

  “You may, sir.”

  “Since I was a boy, I have always been greatly feared of such spaces as this, anywhere small and dark, and I am close to panic.”

  And I was shocked to think this man, who I had late seen fearless play mortal at swords, and who had with no thought to consequence breeched not just the palace but the Queen’s own rooms, now quailed by a simple closet. I could not contain a short laugh, Carey then smacking me hard to my chest and the closet door then flying open, the Queen standing in its space full dressed.

  “Do we amuse you, sir?” she asked.

  And I sudden thought charm my best defence and so answered, “Only if that is your intent, your Majesty.”

  At which she smiled a little, and I was a little relieved.

  CHAPTER 37

  “While the plot be infernal, the design is ingenious,” said the Queen’s apothecary, he and most high members of her council now present in some larger room to which the items from the mercer’s shop had been transported. The chemises had proved free of taint, but the corsets were true deadly.

  “The stays have been sharpened at their ends,” he continued, “and treated with the poison late developed in Venice from castor beans from which death is sure and for which no antidote is known. I have checked, and did also find such in those bottles in this Norton’s chest. The stays were then tempered so that, with only little urging, they would snap inward, being held to their place by only some light sewing. When the corset laces were pulled tight, your Majesty would have been several times pierced and mortal poisoned.”

  The Queen cocked an eyebrow. “We do for fashion’s sake daily suffer at our corset’s hands, but never this dea
r.”

  She turned to Carey. “You are true forgiven, sir, and true loved, for we think few in our service would have been so reckless for our safety. You are named immediate Lord Chamberlain in your father’s place, as the safety of our Royal Household falls chief in those duties and you have already performed them well.”

  “I am true grateful, your Majesty.”

  She turned to Burghley, a minister much in her confidence.

  “Any further from Topcliffe on this? Can we be sure we have the entire threat?”

  “From the girl, nothing, as she has suffered his complete efforts with no word save her praying. The mercer, we think, was none involved but simple used, as he confessed all immediate on only making Topcliffe’s company and we have been at some trouble to stop his talking since. The priest suffered hard, but then broke. He seemed little schooled in her mission, being sent as her spiritual support. We do have from him such names as counted in his congregation, and those are now in our custody and will be examined.”

  Which news troubled me dear, me thinking on my word to the baker and his wife that they were safe in this.

  “And you, Shakespeare. You have served us well. What will you have for it?”

  “There is a boy, Jenkins, who died in this service. I would have his family cared for.”

  “Done,” she said. “None other?”

  There was much other that such a man as I had been at this matter’s start would have ready asked, but I was now instead troubled more by that accidental evil done at my hands.

  “These Catholics arrested on the priest’s confession. I have had truck with some in their number on this matter who did serve you well, your Majesty, and am pained to have them suffer.”

  “It being Catholics also who made this plot,” she said, “and these all having ready prayed with a secret and foreign priest, knowing this full well a crime.”

  “I do not argue that, your Majesty. But without their service, this plot would not be known and you likely would now be dead.” And I told her all concerning the baker and his wife, there being nothing left I could do to protect them save pray mercy.