The Heretics js-5

by Rory Clements

  ‘Jane. .’

  He limped over to her and they embraced awkwardly.

  Shakespeare left them a few moments and then intervened. ‘I have seen you in a bad way before, Boltfoot Cooper,’ he said, ushering him through into a smaller, more comfortable room. ‘But never have I witnessed a more dismal spectre than you present this day.’

  Boltfoot could barely meet Shakespeare’s eye. ‘I have lost Ovid Sloth, master,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Well, for the moment I care more about you. Come in, refresh yourself and we shall talk of this anon. Jane, if you would clean your husband’s wounds, I shall meet him in an hour’s time.’

  Will would have to wait a while. Shakespeare went in search of his girls, who were having lessons from one of the Cecil tutors. He watched them so intently that they began to giggle. He was encouraged by how quickly they had settled here in this safe place, and hoped that Ursula Dancer was equally secure. He did not worry for her; she had had a lifetime of looking out for herself.

  When Boltfoot returned, cleaned up, Shakespeare took him through to Cecil’s library.

  ‘What happened, Boltfoot?’

  ‘I was hammered to the ground, kicked in the face and trodden on, master. But I fear Mr Rowse fared worse.’

  ‘Sit down. You had better tell me everything.’

  Boltfoot lowered himself gently on to a settle. Shakespeare thought him horribly shrunken.

  ‘We were in Falmouth three days before I could secure a berth. At last I found a ship carrying tin and we all walked down to embark. That was when the attack came. I saw them, but we were overpowered. There were four of them, I think. They killed Mr Rowse with a pistol shot and clubbed me to the ground. I was about to be despatched myself when two seamen coming from an ordinary pushed my assailant away from me. I thought he would come back to finish me off, but a mob was gathering and he made good his getaway instead.’

  ‘What of Ovid Sloth?’

  ‘He was carried away on a cart.’

  ‘Do you believe him abducted or rescued by these men?’

  ‘From his smirk, I would say he was complicit, master.’

  Shakespeare nodded. It had been his immediate thought. He wondered how these men had known that Boltfoot would be in Falmouth with Sloth. It was a troubling question, which made Shakespeare worry that there was a traitor inside Godolphin’s camp.

  ‘What manner of man was your assailant?’

  ‘He had a cowl against the weather, which was as stinking wet as a bilge, but I saw his face and eyes. He had a short beard. A woman might call him a handsome man. Perhaps my age, though he may have been a little younger.’

  ‘Did he say anything?’

  ‘Aye, he told me to go to hell. Down, down to hell, he said. And tell them I sent you there. That’s what he said.’

  The words jangled somewhere in Shakespeare’s brain, as if he had somehow heard them before. But where could he have heard such a thing said?

  ‘Was there anything more? Did he say anything else?’

  ‘No, master. And nor did I wait around, for I knew I had to come to you straightway. I did not even wait for the constable or his men, I just picked myself off the ground, saw that Rowse was dead and ran from that place as fast as my foot would carry me. I took passage on the vessel that awaited me. The mariners dressed my wounds after a fashion.’

  ‘You look a great deal more presentable, thanks to Jane’s efforts.’

  Boltfoot nodded. ‘Fortunately, we had a fair wind. Did I do wrong? Should I have searched Falmouth to find Sloth and the killers? I confess I have not thought clearly these past hours and days and I have worried greatly that I have failed you in everything I have done.’

  Shakespeare put his arm around his servant. ‘You have failed me in nothing, Boltfoot. I suspect Mr Sloth did not wait in Falmouth. Indeed, I would not be surprised if he were not already here in London.’

  Chapter 32

  Shakespeare took two wheel-lock pistols with him to the Theatre. The attack on Boltfoot and the deaths of Trott and Loake could not be ignored. He pulled his brother out of the rehearsal and came straight to the point. ‘What is this about Anthony Friday?’

  ‘He came here to see me. Said he had to get word to you.’

  ‘Why did he not bring a message direct to me?’

  ‘Is this the Inquisition, brother? What is going on here?’ Will eyed the two pistol butts protruding from Shakespeare’s belt. ‘Perhaps you would like to take me to the rack-room at the Tower-’

  ‘Forgive me. It is just that my man Boltfoot has suffered grievously, another man has been killed — and Anthony Friday is proving as worthless as a capon in a hen-coop.’

  ‘Come, I understand your impatience, but at least let us take wine together.’

  They went to the sharers’ room, where Will fetched a flagon of wine hidden behind some old books, poured out two cups and handed one to his brother.

  ‘Anthony Friday tried to find you at Dowgate, but was directed from there to Sir Robert Cecil’s home on the Strand. At that he panicked for he had no intention of going anywhere near the Cecils.’

  That was understandable enough, given the pressure Cecil had applied to the man.

  ‘Anyway, that is why he came to me and asked me to bring you to him. He’s in hiding and he’s scared. I believe he was working on a play and has gone to finish it. But before you curse and threaten me with your pistols, he’s not far from here, at an old farmhouse in the market gardens to the east of Shoreditch.’

  ‘But why is he in hiding? Why is he scared?’

  ‘I don’t know, John. But somebody or something has put him in terror, which I suspect is what he wishes to see you about. I will take you to him once you have finished your drink.’

  Shakespeare sipped the sweetened Gascon wine and thought of the fat vintner at St Michael’s Mount. ‘Sir Robert Cecil suggested you might have had dealings with a man named Ovid Sloth.’

  ‘Cardinal Quick? Of course I know him. Everyone does in my world. He likes to think himself a patron, but I haven’t seen him in months. What is your interest in him?’

  Shakespeare had no intention of talking about Ovid Sloth within the confines of a playhouse, where there were too many ears and too many loose lips. Had that not been Garrick Loake’s downfall?

  ‘For the moment, nothing. I will tell you later. But I would ask you one more thing. Do the words down, down to hell mean anything to you?’

  ‘Why, yes, possibly. Is there more?’

  ‘And tell the devil I sent you there — or some such.’

  ‘And say I sent thee thither.’ Will chuckled. ‘Richard of Gloucester in the third part of my Henry VI. Crookback Richard is killing King Henry. Let me find the lines for you.’

  He went over to a shelf and rifled through a pile of papers bound in string, then pulled out one bundle, cut the string and thumbed through the pages.

  ‘Here we are, Act V. Gloucester is doing his dirty work.’

  He put the page in front of his brother and pointed out the lines with his inky forefinger.

  See how my sword weeps for the poor king’s death!

  O! may such purple tears be always shed

  From those that wish the downfall of our house.

  If any spark of life be yet remaining,

  Down, down to hell; and say I sent thee thither.

  Shakespeare clutched his brother’s wrist. ‘See how my sword weeps. Those are your words? I heard another man speak them amid the fires of Cornwall.’

  ‘John, what is this about? You are scaring me.’

  ‘Who played the part for you?’

  ‘Richard of Gloucester? Well, it has shown on various occasions, first with my late Lord Strange’s Men at the Rose three years since. But the most recent player was Regis Roag when we staged it here at the Theatre. He was well cast.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Beneath the charm, there is a touch of darkness in him, a shimmering of violence under the skin tha
t threatens to erupt at any moment. The cold violence of Gloucester. . I can smile and murder while I smile.’

  ‘Was he the player involved with Beatrice Eastley?’

  ‘What a curious thing to ask. I do not see the connection.’

  ‘Just tell me, is it possible? Were they associated with the Theatre at the same time?’

  Will stroked his beard and thought. ‘I suppose they were,’ he said at last. ‘It was certainly about the time he played Gloucester. If there was something between them, however, I didn’t know about it. I could ask some of the players, if you wish.’

  ‘No, say nothing. I am not sure that it would be good for your health or theirs to ask questions. Come now, take me to Anthony Friday. Let us hear what he has to say.’

  The path was nothing but a farm track between rows of salad vegetables: lettuces one side, radishes the other. Men were at work, harvesting the crop for sale in the London markets. They paid the Shakespeare brothers no heed. Half a mile away stood a low cottage with thatching almost to the ground.

  ‘That’s the place, John.’

  ‘Whose is it?’

  ‘I have no idea. But Friday told me it was safe and begged me to tell no one else but you that he would be there. He seemed to think me trustworthy.’

  As they came upon the house, Shakespeare took out his pistols. He felt the same dread he had sensed at Plymouth just before discovering Trott bound and dead.

  This was different. Friday’s body was not in the house. The main room was a scene of utter chaos, a battlefield of blood splashes and debris. The trail of chaos and blood led them out through a back door.

  Shakespeare had his pistols clasped in his hands, pointing ahead like a galleon with twin prows. ‘You may wish to go now, brother. Fetch the constable.’

  ‘I will stay with you, John.’

  ‘Then draw your dagger.’

  Chickens dispersed, clucking, at their approach. They found Friday at the far side of the backyard. His half-naked body was slumped forward over the low wall of a sty. Two pigs sniffed at the corpse with interest.

  Will Shakespeare turned away, his hand to his mouth in horror.

  His elder brother felt the body. It was still warm. He did not have to be the Searcher of the Dead to know that this killing had taken place within the past hour, perhaps a great deal more recently than that. Nor did he have any doubts about the cause of his death; he had been shot in the back.

  He touched his brother’s arm. ‘Be wary, Will. We may yet have company.’

  The playwright nodded and took his hand away from his mouth as he fought to regain his composure.

  ‘This is your Richard of Gloucester at work, Will. Help me move the body.’

  ‘Death and murder are not so squalid on stage.’

  ‘No.’

  Together, they pulled the corpse away from the wall and laid it on the ground. There was a single hole in Friday’s back where the ball had entered. One of his wrists was bound with rope, the other was raw where he had clearly fought to free himself. There were marks on his face.

  ‘John, I really do not like the world you inhabit.’

  ‘It cannot always be contained. It has a habit of intruding into real lives. Yet this is the threat our sovereign has faced every day of her reign, and faces still today. Imagine her fortitude if you will. Come, I must look around. Do you have the stomach for this?’

  Will nodded and followed his brother back towards the house. Something shone in the mud. He bent down and picked it up. ‘Look at this,’ he said, holding it between his fingers.

  Shakespeare recognised it instantly. ‘A sailmaker.’

  ‘Does this mean something to you?’

  ‘It does. It has been used as a weapon in two murders, one of them Garrick Loake’s. It seems Mr Friday did not afford his killers the pleasure of using their ungodly implement.’

  The house amounted to one room and a pantry. In one corner of the room lay a mattress with ruffled blankets. A table was on its side, surrounded by pieces of paper. Shakespeare picked them up. They were all blank. An inkhorn had spilt its contents across the sawdust floor and there were several quills scattered about, as well as a book. A chair with upright back had been smashed. Pieces of rope were tied to it, similar to the fragment knotted to Anthony Friday’s wrist.

  ‘He had much talent, brother,’ Will said. ‘But like others of our profession before him — Marlowe, Kyd, Munday — he could not resist the lure of danger.’

  ‘What was he writing? You mentioned he was working on a play — was it for you?’

  ‘No. Probably Henslowe. He has worked for him before now. All he told me was that it was a paean to Her Royal Majesty. This golden ray, this English goddess, this nonsuch of our hearts. . or some such flummery. A good idea if he could pull it off without incurring the censorial wrath of the Master of Revels. That is as much as I know on that score. Do you think it has some relevance?’

  ‘I must go down all roads, however narrow.’ He held up one of the blank papers. ‘Friday did not seem to be progressing well in his work.’

  ‘He would have delivered it sheet by sheet. Have a word with Henslowe.’

  Shakespeare knew Philip Henslowe well enough. The money man behind the Rose playhouse in Southwark was his brother’s great rival. He examined the blood on the floor. Idly, he picked up a blood-stained sheet of paper that he had missed. Three words were written there, scratched in what looked like a hurried hand.

  They are cousins.

  That was all it said. What did that mean? Who were cousins? Half of London were cousins with the other half. Certainly everyone at court was cousin to everyone else.

  He thrust the paper into his doublet and ground his teeth together irritably. Whenever he made any move towards solving this puzzle, his way was immediately blocked.

  ‘Is Regis Roag behind this? What more do you know of him, Will?’

  ‘I know that he was much given to bragging and considered himself above the common herd of man. One of his claims was that he was once in the employ of the Earl of Essex, but perhaps his greatest boast was his preposterous conceit that he was born to be a king.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He believed he was the son of King Edward VI. He tells this to everyone and anyone who will listen, and to plenty of others who won’t. No one took Roag seriously, which made him yet more resentful. That was why he fitted the part of Gloucester so well: that sense of rage that others had what he considered rightfully his. I would say his whole life is a play, a drama.’

  The great door of the Marshalsea gaol in Southwark creaked open. Richard Topcliffe shook hands with the keeper, thanked him for the excellent food and comfort of his cell, and stepped out into the fresh air. In his hand he had his silver-tipped blackthorn stick, which he twirled.

  A pair of goodwives with their children spotted his shock of white hair and crossed the road to avoid him. He was well known in these parts, and feared. Two men were waiting for him, one of them his assistant Nicholas Jones, the other a man well known to John Shakespeare. A man named Paul Hooft.

  ‘Good day, gentlemen,’ Topcliffe said, smacking his stick into the palm of his left hand. ‘Has Shakespeare found the papist bitch yet?’

  Both men shook their heads.

  ‘Are you certain?’

  Both men nodded.

  ‘Then we must find her ourselves. We have work to do: a conspiracy to foil and Romish blood to spill, so that I may be raised once more to the intimate affection of my beloved sovereign lady. Let us make haste to Westminster.’

  Behind Topcliffe, the keeper closed the door, glad at last to be rid of his celebrated inmate.

  These had been fraught days in the Marshalsea. The keeper had striven to walk a thin line between gaoler and tavern host, for he knew it wise to treat Mr Topcliffe more as a guest than a prisoner. With his back to the heavy oak door, he let out a long sigh of relief, then bent forward and picked up a great handful of sawdust from the floor. He ru
bbed it hard between his fingers, as though somehow he might scour away the evil infection of Topcliffe’s touch.

  Chapter 33

  Shakespeare escorted his brother back to the Theatre and told him to stay among friends. There was no reason to believe him in danger, but no one seemed safe at the moment; it was better not to take unnecessary risks.

  He summoned the Shoreditch constable and the watch, and ordered them to inform the sheriff and convey the body of Anthony Friday from the farmyard to the crypt of St Paul’s for the attention of Joshua Peace. There was a great deal of grumbling from the constable.

  ‘St Paul’s is in London. We don’t have no jurisdiction there, and they’ve got none over us.’

  Shakespeare did not have the time or the patience to argue. ‘Do it or suffer the consequences, Constable. This is Queen’s business. And while you are about it, raise a hue and cry. Search the area around the farm without delay. Anything you find out of the ordinary — anything — is to be brought to me at Sir Robert Cecil’s house in the Strand, just west of the city wall.’

  On the ride back south from Shoreditch towards Bishopsgate and the city, Shakespeare felt the same sensation he had had when walking from the Strand to the Searcher of the Dead in St Paul’s. He was being followed. The road was busy with carts and riders heading in both directions. He looked around with great care, seeking the rider who stopped or slowed when he did, on the lookout for the horseman who wore a cowl despite the warmth of the day. But he could not spot the watcher. Was it the killer of Anthony Friday? He clenched a hand around one of the pistol stocks.

  At Cecil’s mansion, he had a visitor.

  ‘A ragged old woman, Mr Shakespeare,’ the footman said, ill concealing his distaste.

  He had her brought to him in one of Cecil’s quieter rooms, a small office towards the rear of the house where the Privy Councillor did much of his work when he was not at court.