Revenger (54 page)

The apprentice had returned. “I heard you talking. Here …” He held out a flagon and a crust of bread. “She’ll need food and drink.”

“Thank you,” Shakespeare said. “You are a good boy.”

As the boy went back to the foundry, Shakespeare led the girl across the road to the hay bale from where McGunn’s men had been watching the house, and sat her down. “Take a drink, child.”

She gnawed at the bread and sipped ale from the flagon. “They left food and water for us, but the food did run out.”

“How long were you there?”

“I do not know, sir. Perhaps eight days, nine … night and day were the same, for the windows were all boarded. And I do not know how long I had the fever. The Lord took my sister and mother and father.”

The girl did not weep for her family. Shakespeare realized she was still too full of horror.

“What is your name, child?”

“Matilda, sir. I will be eleven years of age on Christmas Day.”

“Matilda, there was another man in there with you. The man who lies dead in the hall. Did you know him?”

“His name was Mr. Winterberry. He was nailed in with us, sir. We did not know him until then. They brought him here, bound and struggling. They wore bird masks and were laughing as they threw him down, then closed the door on us. We were all sick at that time, but we unbound him. He seemed untouched by the pestilence and said he should not be there, that it was murder. He was sore troubled, but I think he was a good man.”

“Why do you say that?”

“When I became more sick, he did nurse me through my fever. Brought water to cool my brow when I was burning hot, and fed me when the fever passed. Then he became sick, too.”

“You said he was sore troubled?”

“He wept and said he was a vile sinner and that he deserved to die. He prayed and prayed. I did not understand all he said. Things like corruption of the flesh, guilt without end. He begged forgiveness and beat his fist against his forehead.” She lifted her gaze to Shakespeare. “Did you know him, sir? Was he a good man?”

“I did know him, Matilda. But I do not know if he was a good man.” He thought back to the incident on the quayside at Indies Wharf, when the cask fell and nearly killed him. Perhaps Winterberry had wanted him dead, to put an end to his investigations. His Puritan coldness hid deep passions. Sir Walter Ralegh had hinted at ships lost at sea. Certainly, Winterberry’s investment in Roanoke had come to nothing. It was possible he was not so wealthy.

Yet it was not financial ruin but the jealousy and rage of the cuckold—a story as old as man—that had finally done for him and brought tragedy on the Le Neves. “God will judge.” He smiled at the girl. “Now,” he said, “what are we to do with you? Do you have relatives who might take you in?”

She shook her head. “No, sir.”

His thoughts suddenly turned to Cordelia Le Neve, who had once had a sister named Matilda. She was all alone now. Perhaps …

“I think I might know just the place for you, Matilda. Just the place.”

Chapter 48

T
HE DAY WAS BRIGHT AND AUTUMNAL. THERE WERE
no church bells, but there was hope in the air; hope that the chillier weather would bring an end to the plague, or at least slow down its ravages.

John Shakespeare and his wife walked side by side along the leaf-strewn streets of Greenwich. They were going to a wedding. Shakespeare did not wish to go, but his wife, although apprehensive, had insisted. He had shrugged his shoulders and agreed. His marriage was strong and loving once more; he did not want to threaten its stability by gainsaying Catherine over something as trifling as a wedding.

As they arrived at the church porch, all bedecked with autumn flowers and foliage, Shakespeare stayed his wife. “Wait. See who is there.”

He raised his head. Across the way, he could see Justice Young, the magistrate of London, and Newall, the chief pursuivant, both close associates of Topcliffe.

Catherine’s mouth turned down in distaste. She knew those faces well. She knew that, like Topcliffe, they would happily hang her and every other Catholic.

“We should go,” Shakespeare said. “This was a bad idea. I want no part of it.”

“No, John, we must stay.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded firmly. “I am sure.”

They walked into the plain church. Twenty or thirty people, mostly men, sat on wooden chairs. Briefly, they turned around to see the newcomers. Shakespeare recognized Thomas Fitzherbert, a pursuivant. Catherine spotted Pickering, the lumbering Gatehouse gaoler. He was mopping the sweat from his brow, though the day was not hot.

“This is not a church of God but of the Devil,” Shakespeare said, dismayed.

“Sit down, John. We must stay, though it break my heart.”

They sat toward the rear of the little church. In place of the altar, there was a bare table. The colored windows had all been smashed and replaced by clear panes. The place was bleak, without hope or joy.

A murmur disturbed the stillness. The bridegroom was coming in. His wedding finery could do nothing to disguise the fact that he was a thick-set ruffian with slimed hair, thin beard, and leering smile: Topcliffe’s apprentice Nicholas Jones, now to be a married man. He smirked at John Shakespeare.

“Poor Anne,” Catherine said, shaking her head sadly as Jones and his bent and watery-eyed father, Basforde Jones, walked up the aisle to await the bride. She had been driven mad through ill-usage by Topcliffe and Jones, scarce able to admit to herself the enormity of what she had done to her family and Father Robert Southwell, who now languished in solitary confinement in the Tower, almost forgotten.

The first Shakespeare and Catherine saw of Anne Bellamy was her swollen belly. She was heavy with child and waddled in, head bowed, shoulders slumped. She had put on a lot of weight since Catherine last saw her, much of it due to her appetite rather than the child. Her voluminous dress, with slashed sleeves and protruding stomacher, was brown and murrey and studded with
gemstones at the wrists. In the absence of her father, she was on the arm of Richard Topcliffe. He was dressed in black with silver-thread trimmings to his velvet doublet. He strode in, proud and pugnacious, swinging his silver-tipped blackthorn.

Together, Topcliffe and the bride walked to the front of the church, where she stopped beside her intended and smiled at him. Topcliffe looked around at the gathered congregation. It seemed for a moment as though he would take a bow, like a player on stage. Then he grinned at Shakespeare and Catherine and turned to face the front, where the parson waited to perform the ceremony.

Catherine tried to stand up, to stop this mockery of a wedding, but her husband motioned her to sit down. “There is nothing to be done, Catherine. She came here of her own accord. I saw her smile at Jones. There is no impediment to this match.”

“But it is a travesty, John.”

“Yes, I fear it is.”

Like groundlings at a tragedy, Shakespeare and his wife witnessed the wedding. When the parson declared Nicholas Jones and Anne man and wife, it was too much to bear. Catherine stood and walked to the door. Shakespeare followed her.

“How can such a thing be allowed, John?”

“Who is to stop a man and woman marrying, if they both so desire it? She said ‘I will’ with a clear, strong voice.”

“She did, did she not? A most fortunate young woman, she is.” Topcliffe was at their side, striding along with them, unbidden and unwanted. “A lucky slattern to have found a man like my Nick to make an honest woman of her.”

Shakespeare tried to keep his wife walking, but she stopped and squared up to Topcliffe. “She is a victim of
your
cruelty, Mr. Topcliffe. You have used her ill and brought her to this state. She knows not what she does.”

Topcliffe leered. “Oh, but she does. She can’t get enough of him. He scratches her itch. But she will bring my boy a fine
dowry. Her family does not know it, but they will give Preston Manor and all its lands and farm-holdings to my lad Nick, whether they like it or not. Sixty-six pounds a year, that will be worth to him. He will be a wealthy young gentleman, which is no more than he deserves for his loyalty to his master and his monarch. And in return, she will no longer be thought the dirty, prick-hungry popish whore that we know her to be, but Mrs. Nicholas Jones, gentlewoman and Protestant. Now, is that not a fine trade-off?”

“And where are her family today, Mr. Topcliffe?” Catherine demanded as Shakespeare tried to pull her away. “Have you killed them all yet?”

Topcliffe gave her a look of pure scorn. “Her family will learn soon enough. They will learn what it means to harbor lewd priests. They will find what it means to cross Topcliffe. As will you. Soon enough. You and your stinking pups, dog-mother whore.” He turned to Shakespeare. “And you—you and your brother—you are both fortunate to be alive, for you have been slithering with toothed serpents and greased priests, oiled and slippery in a tub of the purple demon’s chrism.…”

Shakespeare lingered a long moment with his hand on the hilt of his dagger. He had no sword with him. He did not take swords to weddings. He looked coldly down into Topcliffe’s eyes and came as close as ever he had to killing a man in hot blood.

Instead he turned his back on the Queen’s servant. “Come, Mistress Shakespeare,” he said to her. “Let us go home where the air is clean.”

Chapter 49

W
HEN, AT LAST, SIR ROBERT CECIL RETURNED FROM
the West Country, having salvaged what he could of the
Madre de Dios
treasure, Shakespeare made haste to see him. There was much to be settled.

Shakespeare handed the Privy Councillor a list of the names of all Essex’s supporters at the abortive wedding to Arbella Stuart in the church by Hardwick Hall.

Cecil glanced at the names, then filed them away with other papers. “Thank you, John. We shall deal with this quietly.”

Shakespeare raised an eyebrow in disbelief. Cecil saw his reaction. “John, would you wish to be the man who told the Queen that the thing she loves above all else, her golden warrior, is naught but base metal? Can you imagine her rage? I care nothing for Essex’s head; it is his to lose as he wishes. But the child Arbella? Should she be another Jane Grey? What of the others? I must tell you, I fear the blood-letting would go as far as your brother.”

Shakespeare was shocked. “My brother?”

“Did you think I was unaware of his role in this?”

Shakespeare was silent. Of course he knew. Topcliffe …

“Which leaves us with the question of the evidence you promised me, John.”

Shakespeare stiffened. Cecil was expecting a bundle of letters and verses, signed by Essex but penned by Will. From his doublet, he took the charts supplied by Forman—a death chart for Elizabeth and a nuptial chart for Essex and Arbella—and Forman’s affidavit.

Cecil studied them in silence, then nodded. “Very well. I think you have given me enough. I have my lord of Essex where I want him.” He filed the charts away with the list of names.

Shakespeare bowed.

“And I can now tell you something else, John: Francis Mills is
my
man. It was he that told Essex and McGunn that they must have you—that you could be their Walsingham. And it was Mr. Mills that helped you from within Essex House and protected you when they became suspicious. I trust your past differences will now be at an end, for he is discovered, too, and has hurriedly left Essex House. He will work with us.”

Shakespeare frowned. Work with Mills? Stranger things had happened. Nothing was certain in this intelligencers’ war. Cecil against Essex. Circles within circles. All that could be said was that the opening shots had been fired in a war of secrets between the two greatest young men of the age.

“The Earl, meanwhile, will remain the Queen’s pet,” Cecil continued. “But his progress will always be impeded. He no longer has McGunn’s gold to fund him and must crawl on his belly once more for favors from his sovereign.”

“Is he back at court already?”

“Shamelessly. Closeted all night with her, playing tables and primero, paying her sweet compliments, dancing until dawn. He keeps her amused. The years roll off her shoulders and England is the better for it. But he knows he is found out and will forever be watched. His coven can stir their cauldron as they wish, but they are figures of jest. The She-wolf paces in lonely exile in the Midlands. Penelope cavorts with her amour in her black-draped
chamber. As to Southampton and the others, they sleep at night with aching necks, thinking how close they came to the axe.”