Holy Spy (51 page)

God and a little bit of the same cunning that kept me quick when so many others were dying of hunger and disease on Drake’s great voyage
. ‘Yes, God be blessed. And mistress, you will be pleased to call me Boltfoot, for I am no sir, neither to you nor any person living or dead. Now allow me in for I have a mighty hunger and a thirst to match it – and I must talk with Mr
Shakespeare without delay.’

‘He is not home, sir. I have not seen him in a day and a half.’

‘Well, where is he?’

‘He went with a man called Scudamore. I believe him to be a gentleman in the employ of the Principal Secretary. They went on horseback and I think they were engaged upon important business of the state. In truth, I am sure of it, but that is all I know.’

‘And there has been no word?’

‘None. It seems much danger lurks in this household. I never knew such things in all my born days. My family home was always a place of peace and tranquillity.’

‘Even with a dozen or so sisters? I cannot believe such a house ever knew peace.’ Boltfoot tried to lighten her mood, for he could see she was sore tried. ‘And I have another matter to mention.’ He moved to one side and an equally worn and tattered man stepped forward. ‘I have brought this man with me. He is a seafarer named Mr Maywether and he is to be our guest. I would ask you to make him up the truckle bed in my chamber and find food for us both. We have both been walking all night and I owe him a great debt.’

The man grinned. ‘Aye, that he does, mistress. And he can start paying it by giving me the featherbed – while he has the truckle.’

After they had eaten a large breakfast and washed away most of the grime of the long walk, Jane came to the table with her arms outstretched. Boltfoot’s caliver and cutlass were laid across them. His tired eyes lit up. ‘Where did you find them?’

‘A young lady named Bathsheba Cane brought them. She seemed to know all about you.’

‘Aye, well, I’ll have to thank her, won’t I.’

‘Indeed, I got the sense she wouldn’t mind a visit from you when you have the time.’

Boltfoot grunted and looked away. He didn’t need no housemaid telling him what he should and shouldn’t do. Without a word, he pulled Maywether up from his chair before he fell asleep in his potage and they both trudged off towards the bedchamber. The prospect of a real mattress and a real bed could not be put off any longer.

Within ten minutes, Jane could hear them both snoring as she cleared away their platters and went about her chores, but then she heard another sound, a light rapping at the front door.

The sound worried her. What was it about this house that every knock at the door made her jump? She smoothed down her linen apron and pulled open the door. The man she knew as Mr Tort stood before her. He did not seem threatening, but he was looking about him like an alarmed rabbit which, in turn, frightened her.

‘I am afraid Mr Shakespeare is not here, sir.’

‘I know, but he has a man, does he not – a Mr Cooper. Is he here?’

‘May I ask why you want him, sir? He is presently indisposed.’

‘There is no time for questions. Lives depend on bringing Mr Cooper to me without delay. And that includes your master’s life.’

Jane did not move or say anything. She was trying to make sense of the man’s words. ‘Please, allow me in, mistress, for I fear the house may be watched.’ Jane held open the door yet wider. ‘Yes, come in, sir. Forgive me. I will fetch Mr Cooper to you straightway.’

Severin Tort was not a man of courage. He had no desire for martyrdom, merely wishing to practise his faith in private and his business as a lawyer in peace. At times recently, he had felt the noose tightening about his neck; such matters as the secrets he held for the Giltspur family, the assistance he had given to the fugitive Katherine Whetstone, could not help a man sleep well at night.

But the greatest danger of all in these days was his Catholicism and his stepson’s association with Babington and the rest. That brought them both a great deal too close to the scaffold.

This last night had been the worst. Dominic had come to him in the early evening with the dread news. Shakespeare had arrested Savage but had spared Dominic. The young man had ridden away, but some instinct had made him stop and look back; he had watched from a distance as both Savage and Shakespeare had been taken captive by a band of pursuivants and then carried away strapped across the backs of their horses. Dominic had followed them, unseen, and had watched as John Shakespeare was delivered to the Tower.

What was to be done? His first action was to send Dominic away, telling him that he must do exactly as John Shakespeare had ordered: go to his country estates and remain there a year at least. But what of Shakespeare? He, Tort, could do nothing for him without facing arrest himself. His Catholicism was too well known. It had always been winked at, but it would not remain his own affair long if he attempted to go against Justice Young or Richard Topcliffe. He could not afford to make enemies of such men if he and Dominic wished to stay alive.

Boltfoot was pulling up his hose and trying to adjust his worn and grubby shirt as he limped to the door. He looked at Tort through angry eyes. ‘What?’ he said.

‘Mr Cooper, your master is being held in the Tower. I have no way of helping him.’ He said the words blankly, hoping this simple man might understand plain English. He tried to gauge a reaction, gazing at the exhausted face of Shakespeare’s manservant without much hope. What could this poor, lame creature hope to achieve if he, one of the great lawyers of the age, could do nothing?

‘The Tower of London? Why is he there?’

‘I think he has been taken in error. Beyond that I know not and have no way of finding out without compromising myself, but we must find a way to remove him.’

‘How do you know he is there?’

‘I cannot say.’

Cooper scratched his head. He was bleary-eyed. Did he understand, Tort wondered, what was being said to him?

‘Well the only man who can get him out is Walsingham,’ Boltfoot said. ‘You should go to him. He will more likely listen to you than me, master. You are an attorney-at-law, are you not?’

Tort shook his head vigorously. ‘I would do so, but believe me I cannot. I beg you to trust me, Mr Cooper – there is no one else I can turn to.’

‘Trust you, Mr Tort? I do not know you.’

‘But you know Katherine Whetstone, I think. Did your master not tell you that I, too, am a friend of hers? It was I who sought his assistance.’

Boltfoot nodded. ‘Yes, I do know that.’

‘Then I entreat you, do not question me further – but trust me. You must find a way to have your master freed. Katherine Whetstone is now on trial for her life and by day’s end will be condemned. I can do nothing more for her. The only slender hope she has is your master.’

Chapter 43

Church bells pealed out across the city. As the news spread, they would ring across villages in the shires. In the gloom of evening, Shakespeare shook hands with the chief warder of the Tower and thanked him for his hospitality.

‘I take it you know what the bells signify, Mr Shakespeare?’

‘The plot is broken.’

‘Aye, they are making arrests hour by hour. I know not how many.’

‘There will be many.’ Shakespeare gritted his teeth. There would be a great many. He wondered which of the conspirators had been taken so far. And which would escape. Topcliffe had boasted that Babington and others were in the woods north of Tyburn. Had they been captured yet? If not, they would be soon enough; their names were all known and their fates were sealed. The thought gave him no pleasure. The deaths of hapless, foolish young gentlemen should not be the cause of bell-ringing. Even the likely execution of the serpent-like Queen of Scots should not be an occasion for joy; but sadness that it had had to end this way.

Boltfoot walked the horses forward. Shakespeare nodded to him, then allowed the warder to help him into the saddle.

‘Where are they, Boltfoot?’

‘Newgate, master. Condemned to death by Judge Fleetwood. They will die at dawn.’

‘Then let us ride.’ He shook the reins and dug his heels into the horse’s flanks, urging it into a canter, the bells tolling in his ears like the chimes at the gates of hell.

On every street and corner, townsfolk were gathering and bonfires were lit. The people were drinking and dancing and crying eternal life to England and Elizabeth and death to all papists, Jesuits and traitors. But especially death to the Queen of Scotland. Let demons and devils prod her obscenely with their forks for all eternity. Let her burn for ever.

Shakespeare felt a chill in the air. Summer had fled and even the bonfires could provide no warmth.

At Newgate, they had to wait ten minutes before the keeper came from his supper at the tavern. It was the moment for Shakespeare to hear the full story of what had happened to Boltfoot and how he had managed to walk to freedom from the port of Sandwich in the east of Kent. What mattered most was the vital information about the Giltspur family that Boltfoot had learnt in his conversations with Maywether. Suddenly he understood the motive behind the murder of Nicholas Giltspur.

He thanked Boltfoot. ‘We will find the money for Mr Maywether somehow. Fear not.’

‘I felt I had no choice but to agree to his terms, master.’

‘You did well. And tell me, Boltfoot, did Mr Secretary hesitate before ordering my release from the Tower?’

‘A moment or two, perhaps. No more.’

‘And did he wish me well?’

‘In truth, sir, I cannot recall. But he did tell me to demand of you what had become of Gilbert Gifford.’

Shakespeare smiled to himself. Walsingham would hesitate while he pondered the consequences before freeing his own mother from a gin trap. Well, so be it. Shakespeare would have expected it no other way. As for the pink pigling, Shakespeare had no doubts: Gifford had fled the country at the first sight of Mr Phelippes’s ill-advised drawing of a gallows on the letter out of Chartley. The intelligencer-priest, the holy spy, whose double dealing was about to do for Mary Stuart and Anthony Babington, knew all too well how innocence and guilt could become confused at the sharp end of such an endeavour. He had fled to save his skin.

The keeper appeared. As he nodded to his guests some unspecified insect fell from his knotted hair. He picked a piece of food from his beard, put it to his nose, decided against eating it and flicked it to the ground. ‘Seems you just can’t keep away, Mr Shakespeare. Perhaps you’d like a cell of your own. Take up residence here.’

‘I believe you have two prisoners awaiting death.’

‘Indeed I do, master, and you’re in time to talk to them. They have a few more hours until they are carted to Thames Street.’

‘Is that where they are to be hanged?’

‘Aye, next the clock, the scene of the crime. I am told the carpenters’ work is done. The scaffold is ready. They will die where their victim fell.’

‘Take me to them.’

‘They’re kept separate being of differing sexes. Which do you want first?’

‘The woman.’

‘Very well. Follow me.’ He put his hand up to Boltfoot. ‘The cripple stays here with his strange weapons.’

Kat was not shackled. She was in a cell alone and was sitting at a small table with a quill, ink and a blank sheet of paper. She looked up as the door opened and her eyes met Shakespeare’s.

‘So you have come to say farewell, John. I prayed you would. I have been trying to write you a letter, but no words appear.’

He smiled at her. Never had he seen her so forlorn. Her blue eyes shone in the light of a single candle but they retained little of their vitality, as though she already thought of herself as dead. ‘No. I have not come to say farewell but to try to find a way to save you.’

‘You were not at Justice Hall, for if you had been you could not possibly believe in my innocence.’

‘What happened? Why did you hand yourself in?’

‘Won’t you at least kiss me?’

He took her face in his hands. Her fair cheeks were cold to the touch. He kissed her and she buried her face in his neck. He stroked her hair.

‘Your lips,’ she murmured. ‘The touch of your tender, familiar lips. They are like life in this place of death. Did you know that I am to hang at dawn?’