License to Quill (25 page)

Walsingham leaned forward in his chair. “Did the older witch have a scar across her neck?” he asked, making a motion across his with his pipe.

Shakespeare shook his head. “I don't know. I could not tell.”

The spymaster scowled. “And what of their accents? Was there anything peculiar about their speech? Did it have a guttural sound to it?”

“I would not know. The storm was too loud, and I was too far away to—”

“The storm?”

The playwright paused. “Yes?”

Walsingham sat up in his chair shocked. “Will, when exactly did this meeting take place?”

Shakespeare, put on edge by the disquieted spymaster, replied, “Around midnight, between the last of February and the first of March.”

“The first night of the storm?”

The bard nodded. “Yes. Shortly after the first flashes of lightning.”

Walsingham processed this with intensity. “William, is there any way you can assure me that the storm
preceded
the arrival of the cunning folk to the meeting ground?”

Shakespeare raked his mind over this, but then shook his head. “No. The cunning folk were already in the forest with a fire going when the conspirators arrived. With the wind and snow as they were, their fire had to have preceded the storm.”

A deathly glare fell over Walsingham's face. Without explanation, the spy-chief rose from his desk and hustled into Penny's study. The busy secretary looked up from her desk, where she was transcribing W's conversation with Shakespeare. “That will be all, Lady Percy. Would you leave us, please?” The secretary put down her feather and handed Walsingham her parchments. She then walked out of the room and closed her door just as the spymaster closed his.

W strode past the playwright and threw his pages into the fireplace.

Shakespeare jumped from his chair. “Enough of this. What's going on, W? Why is everyone on edge? You would think that we're being invaded right now!”

“We're always being invaded!” the spymaster spat. “It's a pastime as old as Julius Caesar. You of all people should know that!” Walsingham turned from the fire and squared shoulders with the playwright. “Do you know why I keep that up?” he asked candidly, pointing to his painting of the Spanish Armada.

Shakespeare glanced at the great portrait of English and Spanish warships in battle. “As a trophy?” he guessed.

“As a warning. I look at that painting every day to remind me of what swept me into this office.”

“Bad weather?” Shakespeare snickered, hoping to lighten the mood with some humor.

Walsingham was not smiling. He turned his head and looked back to the painting. “During the war, my cousin obsessed over how to shore up our defenses for the Spanish invasion. He estimated more than fifty thousand men would come at us from Spain and the Low Countries.” The spymaster directed Shakespeare toward a mess of maps on the wall. “The most we could ever muster was half that, and spread over more than ten thousand miles of coastline. Unless we stopped the Armada on the high seas, this kingdom would fall.”

“Well.” Shakespeare nodded. “I guess it's a good thing that you stopped them.” The bard took out the letter Walsingham left for him at the Ludgate.
“Flavit Iehovah et Dissipati Svnt.”
Shakespeare looked up from the note, smirking. “Is that why you summoned me? To remind me that God blessed these lands with foul weather? You've made me a resident expert on the subject. If I spent three more weeks in these elements, I'd be Noah.”

The spymaster puffed his pipe, ignoring the playwright's indignation. “You remember the role I played in the war, correct?”

“Did you blow God's horn?”

“Watch yourself, playwright.”

The bard exhaled, feeling a bit more at peace with himself. “I cannot say I remember because I was too busy not getting involved. But … I do remember a former friend of ours sharing something on the subject.”

W nodded, grateful that Shakespeare heard what he did from Marlowe. “And what did he say?”

“He said you worked for your cousin during the war. That was all.”

“In this very building,” Thomas emphasized. “My cousin worked there,” he said, pointing to the desk beneath his late cousin's portrait, “and my office was there.” This time, he pointed to the adjoining room, Penny's study. “I was the only person Francis trusted as his last line of defense, and if anyone wanted a word with him, they had to speak to me first.”

“How loquacious of you,” the bard praised.

W sucked on his pipe and walked toward a large map of the Isles. “You remember those three men who were watching Kit the first night that we met?”

“Of course. I was actually there that time.”

“Indeed. One of them, Poley, was a bit of an expert at the intelligence trade. He would meet with the type of people I chose to keep away from. He was my filter for them.” Thomas paused, blowing a thick cloud of smoke. “Once word reached this office that we repulsed the Armada at Gravelines, Poley said a cunning woman wanted to meet with my cousin. She apparently traveled all the way from Scotland to London just for the occasion. I wasn't interested, but Francis was. The woman offered England the opportunity to defeat the Spanish fleet once and for all.”

“Thomas…” Shakespeare muttered, piecing the bigger picture together. “What did you do?”

“I did nothing!” the spymaster insisted. “As I said, Francis, my predecessor, had made it his mission to defend these isles with every resource at our disposal! This woman said she and her sisters could sink the Armada. Not defeat it in battle, but crush it against rocks! She promised a hurricane the likes of which no son of Spain would soon forget.”

The bard swallowed. “And whose throat did she slit to seal this deal?” he sneered.

Walsingham walked into the playwright's face. “One of her own! All the woman requested was a private ceremony here, at Stonehenge.” W pointed to a small drawing of the stone structure on a Wiltshire map. “The women would allow only one witness, so my cousin requested that I attend. I did not want to, but I trusted his judgment.” The spymaster stared straight at Shakespeare. “I was there, Will. I saw the same women that you did. It was a hideous day. Gray, dreary, lifeless; you know the kind. I watched that elder witch stab her own sister in the throat: a lovely lass with brown hair. She did not appear any older than I was at the time. The dark deed was carried out at sundown while a young girl watched and helped. A blond girl. She could not have been any older than six.”

“The woman had her throat slit, and she lived?”

“It was not a deep cut. She bled and collapsed, but the elder witch saved her life.” W puffed his pipe. “The women were cunning folk. They had no homes, so I just left them where they were. By the time I returned to London, word had just reached the city that a terrible storm wrecked the Armada off the coast of Scotland.”

“The Protestant Wind.…” Shakespeare chided, shaking his head. “That's magnificent, Thomas. You made the whole world believe that God saved us and preserved the faith. But in reality, you entered us into a pact no differently than if Faust had been our king.”

“It was war, Will! We were already living in Hell.” W turned away and puffed an angry cloud of frustration. “No one knew of the ceremony. Francis died two years later.”

“Was he murdered?”

“I don't think so. He had been ill for some time, but…” The spymaster hesitated. “Something strange happened around the same time as his death.”

Shakespeare's eyes widened. “What was it?”

Walsingham turned to his map of the Isles. “In the spring of 1590, King James, the man you just saw in this room, was nearly killed in a storm while returning from his wedding in Denmark. A tribunal was put together to investigate, and as king of Scotland, James personally questioned the woman accused of causing the tempest: a cunning folk healer named Agnes Sampson. James was
not
convinced of her guilt and was prepared to rule in her favor. However, to the shock of everyone, the woman confessed to her crimes! She then looked the king in the eyes and repeated the same words he shared to his queen on the night of their marriage.
*
James was shocked by this and had the woman put to death. Her execution set off an entire wave of witch trials throughout Scotland. It was the largest witch hunt these lands have ever seen.” W turned away from the map and looked back at Shakespeare. “That sorceress, Agnes Sampson, was the woman I met.”

“You are sure of this?”

“Positive. I was at her trial as an observer. The only reason I did not enter my experience with her as evidence was because I could not risk exposing the Protestant Wind for what it was.”

Shakespeare bit his lip anxiously. “And what of the two other women? The younger ones?”

“I never learned their names or fates. I had never even seen them before the ceremony. Poley knew nothing of them either. The eldest witch approached him alone.”

The bard raised an eyebrow. “And what was his fate?”

“Poley went missing years ago. I have not heard from him since.”

“Well…” Shakespeare surmised, “it sounds like you got quite a bargain. You made a deal with a Devil, and now you're expecting me to get us out of it.”

“Honestly,” Thomas exhaled, “I am not expecting it so much as I am hoping it.” Walsingham finished his pipe and looked down at it dejectedly. “Two weeks ago,” he continued, walking over to his master map of Europe, “a raven arrived bearing news that our spy network in Venice had been compromised. And after that, nothing. Dead silence from every one of our overseas stations. Paris”—he pointed—“Hamburg, Prague, Vienna, the Low Countries, Spain, Algiers … All of them.”

“There's no word?”

“They're all down. All their reports ended on or before March first. If the stations were still operational, we would have received updates from them by now.”

“Could this be due to the storm?”

Walsingham shook his head. “I sent some men across the Channel to Calais to investigate. They said all four of our agents in the city had been slain.”

“Slain!” Shakespeare gasped.

The spymaster nodded. “Murdered during the French revelries on Fat Tuesday. I swear, Will, it's like St. Bartholomew's Day all over again.” Walsingham shook his head and stuffed his spent pipe in his mouth.

“Who could be behind this?”

“Who do you think! My men also heard some news while in Calais: Pope Clement VIII is dead. A secure source says he was found unresponsive in his bed on March the third.”

“Was he murdered?”

“I don't know yet. However, Alessandro de' Medici is expected to win the papacy since he enjoys French and Italian support. The cardinals should be convening right now.”

“You think the Medici are behind this?”

The spy-chief did not respond. Instead, he let the playwright figure it out for himself.

England's entire international spy network had been severed.

The pope was dead, and Alessandro de' Medici was only days away from becoming his successor.

Shakespeare's heart skipped a beat. “God save me,” he groaned.

“Yes. God save us both,” said W.

“This is real?” the bard asked. “It all feels like a dream.”

“That's because you've been asleep to the truth your whole life. The world you know is a stage; a drama. This is the world as it is, Will. These are the villains we are forced to fight.”

The bard had to steady himself against the wall. “And what am
I
supposed to do against women who control storms and can shift the tales of entire kingdoms?”

The spymaster emptied his spent tobacco into the fire. “Conspiracies are like weeds, Will. You need to rip them out by their roots. We have plenty of time to uproot Fawkes and his men, but these cunning folk can no longer be ignored. They clearly possess a power that Bacon has yet to catch up with.” Walsingham noticed the bard's spyglass slung over his shoulder. “How does his magic hold up on the field?” he asked.

“Pretty well,” the stunned playwright responded.

“Well, I want to see if you can use some of his magic again.”

Shakespeare swallowed. “How?”

“I need you to go back to the cunning folk and kill every last one of them.”

The playwright absorbed this, and then turned to the pewter pitcher behind him. “I think I will need some more wine.” Shakespeare filled his cup with a shaking hand and then fumbled for the leather pouch in his cloak.

“You need not worry. It's not poisoned.”

“It would be so much easier if it was,” the playwright sighed with a gulp.

 

Chapter XXVI

A Dramatic Entrance

The Jewish ghetto—or
ghèto
, meaning “foundry”—was not easy for Christopher Marlowe to find. Fortunately, this worked to the poet's advantage after eluding authorities across more than a mile of rooftops.

When the Venetian government created the first ghetto in 1516, they went out of their way to keep its location as inconspicuous as possible. They chose Ghetto Nuovo, a small island in the Cannaregio
sestiere
that was being used as a waste site for the adjacent Ghetto Vecchio, a copper foundry. Despite covering less than two acres and with nowhere to build but upward, this tiny fragment of slag became home to thousands of Jews. The ghetto was enlarged in 1541 to include the Ghetto Vecchio as well, and the sites were enclosed within high walls under constant security. The ghetto's iron gates closed at sundown and remained locked until dawn, and its canals were patrolled by Christian sentries at night. The ward was both a prison and a refuge for countless Jews throughout Europe, and much like the city they shared, business and scholarship thrived within the Venetian Ghetto's community.