Traitor (39 page)

A dozen viols filled the
grande salle
with music. Sir John Norreys held the centre of the floor with the lady Eliska. They danced apart from each other, yet in time. He moved forward a step, she moved back. His shoulders were stiff and proud, her slender body mirrored his. As if suddenly tiring of this peacock display, his right hand went to the front of her exquisite skirts, clasping the busk of her corset in most intimate fashion; the
other hand gripped her hip, just above her buttock. She pushed forward at his touch, moving closer to him so that their lips almost kissed, then as one they turned and sprang into the air, like doves taking flight.

The two hundred revellers crowding around the rim of this modest town hall burst into appreciative applause, then flooded forward to join their captain-general and his mistress in the volta.

Above the music, the din of laughing and cheering made it clear that this was an army with its blood up. They would drink and love their fill this night, for on the morrow the hard business of killing or dying began. There would be no more soft flesh to comfort them and the only music would be the martial beat of the drum and the shriek of the fife. At last they were being sent to win a war.

Most of the men here in this hall, in a square close to Paimpol Harbour, were English, but there were, too, officers of the French royalist army of Marshal Aumont.

John Shakespeare stood dripping in the doorway and watched with astonishment. For a moment he did not recognise the woman with Norreys. Then his eyes widened in disbelief. What in God’s name was Lady Eliska doing here in Brittany? And with Sir John Norreys, too?

A serving man passed by with a tray of goblets. Shakespeare took one and poured fine French wine into his mouth, followed immediately by another. The wine was dry and smooth and very welcome to his parched, salty throat. He had arrived in Paimpol less than half an hour earlier, having been delayed interminably at Weymouth. In the end he had ridden back to Poole to find a boat willing to make the crossing. Now, standing at the edge of this revel among smartly attired soldiers and exquisite young women, he realised he must look out of place. He was drenched with brine from the rough voyage across the
sea. His salt-thick clothes stuck to his skin as though coated in wet sand. He had not even had time to find lodgings.

He strode into the mêlée of officers and their young women. Norreys and Eliska had ended their dance and were making their way back to the edge of the hall, where his senior officers were gathered. Shakespeare recognised the heroic Sir Anthony Wingfield, whom he knew slightly and recalled to be a great friend of Norreys; Sir Thomas Baskerville, too, his boots and clothes thick with dust as though he had hurried here from battle.

Something made Eliska turn. She came face to face with Shakespeare and a curious look crossed her beautiful features.

Shakespeare bowed stiffly. ‘My lady Eliska.’

‘Mr Shakespeare.’

Their eyes searched the other’s for some meaning to this encounter.

‘Is it really you? You have no idea how glad I am to see you.’

‘Indeed? That sounds as if you were almost expecting me, my lady.’

‘I always expect the unexpected. But tell me, I assume you have been sent by Cecil?’

‘In a manner of speaking. But how would
you
know of that?’

She at last managed to compose herself and smile, then leant forward for a kiss on her cheek. He did not oblige.

‘It has been my most fervent wish to see you here,’ she said. ‘But look at you, John. You are like a barnacled sea-monster just stepped from the depths. Your hair is a tangle, your apparel is drenched. You look wretched.’

Norreys had turned now and glared at the newcomer. He was not as tall as Shakespeare, but he had a powerful military bearing, a thick head of hair curling back from his forehead and a well-trimmed spade beard. ‘Lady Eliska?’

‘This is Mr Shakespeare, Sir John.’

‘Ah yes, Mr Shakespeare. Come to spy on me, have you?’

Shakespeare bowed. ‘Sir John.’

Norreys laughed. ‘Fear not, Mr Shakespeare. I know exactly why you are here.’ He downed his drink and looked at Shakespeare dispassionately. His mouth was as flat and unsmiling as the horizon. ‘Very well, Mr Shakespeare. Let us remove ourselves to somewhere quieter, and we will discuss our next move.’

They moved to a side room. It was stark and cheerless, some sort of civic office with a table and nothing else.

‘Sir Robert informed me that you might not be fully acquainted with his plans for you, Mr Shakespeare,’ Norreys said. He sipped a goblet of good wine. ‘So I am to brief you. Sir Robert Cecil desires you to undertake an operation of great daring and extreme danger.’

Shakespeare listened in silence.

‘We must take Fort El Léon to save Brest from the Spanish hordes. All our intelligence suggests it is practically impregnable, and is so well provisioned and manned that it would take a year or more to succumb to siege. That leaves us one option. We must take it from the inside.’

‘I assume Sir Robert has devised some method by which this miracle is to be achieved?’

Norreys shook his head and looked at Eliska. ‘No, but this lady has. And I can tell you that it all depends on the famed perspective glass – and you. It seems, Mr Shakespeare, you are to betray your Queen and country and become a traitor.’

Eliska came to him at three o’clock, when most of the revellers slept. His lodging was in a stable attached to Sir John’s own quarters, which was the largest house in Paimpol.

He was already awake, thinking of Andrew. Norreys had
been unable to shed any light on the boy’s whereabouts, but said that Pinkney was expected with a hundred men. He knew the provost marshal well from the wars in the Low Countries. He was a hard man, but a good soldier.

Eliska broke into his reverie. She was about to touch his cheek with her fingertips, but he reached up and gripped her slim wrist.

‘Hush, it is only me.’ The candle that she carried lit up her fair skin so that it glowed.

‘I know your name. Now I think it is time to discover exactly who you are. You turn up in the most curious of places.’ Shakespeare pulled himself to his feet. He had been curled on a borrowed palliasse. She kissed him, her lips lingering a few moments on his. He stood back from her. ‘Well?’

‘I will tell you everything, but first things first.’

She put the candle down on the flagstone paving of the stall.

He kissed her and took her in his arms and laid her down on his thin palliasse.

T
HE WEATHER BROKE
. Storm clouds rushed in with the Atlantic. The five-hundred-ton royal ship
Vanguard
was anchored just outside the Brest roads, in the lee of the western coast. Through the slanting rain, they could see the squat fort of El Léon, sitting like a malign toad atop the cliffs of the Crozon headland. It looked impenetrable and menacing.

Frobisher’s small fleet had swelled to nineteen ships: his five royal vessels and six armed merchantmen had been joined by eight Dutch warships, laden with gunpowder and cannonballs. A flotilla of six Spanish galleys had fled at the sight of them and the English now had total control of the sea coast outside the harbour entrance.

The
Vanguard
’s cannon roared. Fire flashed from five black muzzles protruding through the gunports and sent seventeen-pound balls of iron flying across the water. All but one smashed into the cliff face. Only one reached the lower edge of the fortress wall, but caused no damage. Frobisher smiled to himself. He knew from intelligence that the fort’s walls were almost forty feet thick in places. He knew, too, that the ship’s guns could not elevate sufficiently to hit the seaward defences at any height, let alone breach them. Yet it was necessary to let the Spanish defenders know that they were here and that they
could make life uncomfortable. No longer could the fort be provisioned by sea.

Below decks, Boltfoot Cooper was eating broth. The boom of the cannon and the violent shaking of the vessel made him spill the stew from the spoon over his chest.

Ivory puffed on a pipe from the right side of his mouth. A young midshipman held the implement in place for him.

‘Can’t even feed yourself properly, can you?’ Ivory said, slurring his words. ‘You’re less than a cripple, Cooper, you’re about as useful as a hamstrung mole-warp.’

‘Well, at least I can smoke a pipe of sotweed without assistance, Mr Ivory.’

‘God damn you, Cooper. Where were you when I needed protection? Bloody asleep.’

‘You placed your own self in jeopardy. That was none of my doing.’

Boltfoot studied Ivory with some indifference. He cared not a jot for the man, but he
was
worried about his slow recovery; Ivory might be needed still. The left side of his body was palsied; he could not raise his left arm nor use his left leg for walking.

‘It is the stroke of God’s hand,’ the surgeon had said grimly.

Another cannon boom shook the ship. Boltfoot poured the remainder of the broth down his throat, then rose and made his way further below decks. A store-cabin near the galley had been emptied of kegs and turned into a makeshift prison cell for the man with the scarred arm. Boltfoot unlocked the door and stepped inside. For a few moments he looked at the hunched and bruised figure of Janus Trayne.

‘Do you have anything to say yet, Mr Trayne?’

‘Why am I being held here, Mr Cooper? What am I supposed to have done to be treated so? It has been days now … I have lost track of day and night.’

‘You know very well why, Mr Trayne, or whatever your true name is. Your scarred arm identifies you and Mr Ivory has singled you out as the man who lured him down to the gun deck.’

‘I wanted a game of cards, that is all. As for this scar –’ he pointed to his injured arm – ‘I tell you again, I got that injury in a knife fight in Chatham, attacked by a drunken Dutchman. I should be manning my cannon, not sitting in this filthy hole.’

‘You have a confederate, I know it. Tell me who it is and your life may be spared.’

Trayne sat back against the wooden bulkhead and sighed. ‘My only confederates are my fellow gunners, whom I should be assisting right now to pummel the enemy. Not rotting here.’

Boltfoot was certain Trayne had not acted alone. Yet he would not budge, would not reveal anything, even after a beating on Frobisher’s orders. A search of his hanging canvas bed and his small chest had been fruitless. The whole of the gun deck and beyond had been thoroughly investigated in the days since the
Vanguard
sailed here from Paimpol by way of Morlaix. Now they faced the narrow strait of Le Goulet, only a mile wide and overlooked by the high cliffs that dominated Brest roads.

It occurred to Boltfoot that perhaps the pig-hide tube might no longer be on the ship. Perhaps a soldier had managed to get it ashore when Norreys’s army had disembarked at Paimpol. Or one of the men could have taken it when the siege guns were landed at Morlaix. But he could not be certain of that, so he had to assume that Trayne had a confederate and that he was still aboard. He could not afford to let his guard drop again.

Frobisher appeared at Boltfoot’s side. ‘Is he still not talking? I believe it is time to try some stronger medicine, Mr Cooper. What say you?’

‘I agree, admiral. I think it is.’

‘Do you swim, Mr Trayne?’

Trayne shifted uneasily. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean,’ Frobisher said, ‘that I am considering releasing you. You can swim ashore to join your Spanish friends at the fort of El Léon.’

‘I … I cannot swim.’

‘Then it is a good time to learn, Mr Trayne. A very good time. Perhaps you will spy a sea unicorn, as I have done in the far northern oceans.’ Behind Frobisher stood two marines. ‘Take this man on deck,’ he ordered them. ‘Then throw him overboard. I have seen enough of his face and will waste no more food on him.’

The marines stepped forward and dragged Trayne to his feet. He kicked and tried to fight them, but they overpowered him easily and marched him from the cell.

‘I leave him in your hands, gentlemen,’ Frobisher said and strode off towards his cabin, one hand on the hilt of his sheathed sword.

‘You can’t do this!’ Trayne yelled. ‘I’ll die.’

Boltfoot said nothing, nor did the marines. They half carried, half dragged him up the companion ways to the main deck and, without further ceremony, the marines threw him over the side into the churning grey sea. For a moment, they watched him floundering and spluttering, and then he was gone, beneath the waves.

Boltfoot turned away. He felt sick to his soul. He had thought it was a threat, that they would hang the man over the bulwark by his feet and terrify him. It had not occurred to him that they would really do it.

Andrew and Reaphook hid in undergrowth close to a remote farm. Reaphook stroked the tuft of hair in the cleft of his chin. For more than half an hour they watched the farm and detected
no sign of life other than the pecking of chickens and the snorting of pigs.

‘It’s deserted. This’ll do.’

‘Wait,’ Andrew said. ‘There must be someone indoors, or working near by.’

Reaphook dug his elbow sharply into Andrew’s side. ‘It’s Sunday. They’re at church, all of them. That’s what these people do early on a Sunday morning. We’ve got to get food, you maggot. Pinkney will flog us at the post if we don’t.’

‘But they may have left someone at home … We don’t know if it’s safe.’

‘I’ve got a short sword, a pistol and my sickle. You’ve got a sword and a dagger. We’re soldiers. We’re safe. Come on, there are a dozen chickens and there will be grain or meal in the store. It’s now or never.’

Reaphook rose to his haunches, looked about, then ran forward at a crouch. After a few moments’ hesitation, Andrew followed him.

‘I get the hens, you go to the barn,’ Reaphook said, unslinging a large bag from his back.

The barn was light and airy, and filled with sacks and kegs. For a few moments, Andrew stopped and looked around, entranced by its simple beauty and peace. He lifted up one of the sacks and reckoned it at half a hundredweight. From the soft feel of it, he guessed it contained milled flour. He could carry two at most. He hoisted one over each shoulder and sagged under the weight. Outside, in the farmyard, there was a furious clucking as Reaphook slaughtered chickens with the grim thoroughness of a fox in the coop. He was quick and skilful at catching them and wringing them by the neck. Each one he killed, he thrust into his bag. He carried on until there was one left.