‘Dog’s bollocks, Mr Shakespeare, I am going nowhere until this fort is ours.’ Frobisher lifted his head and loosed off two pistol shots in the general direction of the enemy.
Shakespeare, hunched low, bowed his head to Frobisher. ‘Forgive me for leaving you like this. Your men will look out for you. If you would give me two of your pistols, there is something I must do.’
Without hesitation, Frobisher thrust two pistols into Shakespeare’s sweat-slippery hands. He handed him a horn of powder and a small box of touchpowder, along with a pouch of balls. Shakespeare quickly primed the guns with powder and loaded them, tamping the bullets home hard with cartridge paper.
There was a roar. A cannonball blew past them into the incoming wave of marines, taking one man clean off his feet and carrying him away. Frobisher turned to an adjutant. ‘Do for that cannoneer and take control of his machine, sir.’
‘Yes, admiral.’
The air was blistered by gunshots, crossbow bolts, the screams of men and the whisper of arrows. Shakespeare broke cover and ran deep into the fort, to the eastern side of the Spanish trenches towards the chapel and the stables. He sensed balls whip past him. Keeping his head low, weaving this way and that, he made it to the stable block where panicked horses were whinnying and stamping, straining to break free from their stalls. A haybarn was ablaze.
Then he saw her. She was standing on a powder keg on the seaward rampart, waving her yellow chemise flag. Surely she must have seen the rocket flares? She must know her work was done. He wanted to shout to her: Get down, it has worked, make your escape. He saw Captain Paredes, too. He was striding along the seaward ramparts. His pistol – Norreys’s pistol – glinted in the flames of the burning hay. Shakespeare shouted out, but she did not seem to hear. Paredes pulled the trigger, driving a bullet deep into Eliska’s back. She had not even seen him coming. She toppled forward, still clutching the hilt of her sword. The flag fluttered down with her.
Shakespeare ran up the steps.
‘Murderer! Dog!’
He shot Paredes with the first pistol and the captain went down. Shakespeare, closer now, pulled the trigger of the second pistol – and Paredes was dead. The first ball had entered his chest and must have ripped into his heart; the second tore into the side of his skull.
Careless for his own safety, Shakespeare went to Eliska and knelt at her side. A squadron of five Spaniards had detached itself from the main fighting force at the landward end of the fort and had followed him. Shakespeare realised in horror that both his pistols were discharged. He tried to powder one, but his hands were shaking now and all he did was spill the black powder on to the stone beneath his feet.
‘Eliska …’
Her breathing was shallow. He feared she did not have much time; he had to get her to safety. He looked up. The Spaniards were no more than thirty yards away. But instead of coming forward, they stopped and turned to the east for they were now coming under fire themselves, from three English marines with petronels, who had broken through from the gateway contingent and formed a defensive pocket behind a low stable wall.
Their arrival bought him time. He took a deep breath, steadied himself and tried again to load his pistols. This time the shaking had gone. He pushed them into the belt of his breeches, then lifted Eliska in his arms. She was as light as he remembered from their night in the wilds of Lancashire. Her fair hair hung loose, her eyes were open. Was she breathing? He was no longer certain.
From the rampart, steps led down into the side of the cliff where, he knew, there were more storerooms and emplacements. He carried her down. The going was steep and rugged, overgrown and tangled with briars and vines and sharp gorse. Halfway down, he found a room carved into the rock, nothing more than a man-made cave. There was little light in the gloomy room. It was cool in here and the sound of battle was muffled. He placed her gently on the ground, on her side, with her blood-soaked velvet cloak splayed beneath her. He put his ear to her breast and listened for breathing but could hear none; he felt for her pulse in vain. He talked to her, urged her to live. Seconds passed, minutes. Nothing. There was no more any man could do for her. He held her face, kissed her and made supplication to God for her soul.
Suddenly he was riven with anger. Why had she continued to wave the flag after the rockets went up? Why had she still been there, offering herself up as a target when her work was done?
With his thumbs, he closed her eyes.
He turned away and stepped out into the grey daylight. He began to climb back up to the fort, through the thorny undergrowth. At the top he saw that the squadron that had saved him was, itself, in difficulties. The Spanish troops had been heavily reinforced and were raining gunshots and crossbow bolts at them.
Crouching, he loped along close to the parapet. He was getting nearer to the English contingent. He looked up and his heart felt as though it would stop in his chest: Andrew. Andrew was there in helmet and armour, with another he recognised: the pitted face of Provost Marshal Pinkney.
The terror of it was that the powerful Spanish force – a dozen or more men, with pike and shot – was advancing. The English position was about to be overrun.
Chapter 46
SHAKESPEARE ROSE TO his full height. He had no cover. He raised one of the pistols in his right hand, the wrist supported by his clenched left hand, then pulled the trigger. One of the attackers crumpled. Shakespeare dropped the pistol, fell to one knee, raised the other loaded pistol and fired again. The recoil knocked him back momentarily, as flame and smoke belched from the gun. A Spaniard moaned and doubled up as though he had been punched in the belly. The other Spaniards stopped. Shakespeare leapt down the steps from the rampart and dashed for Andrew and the two others.
‘Fair shooting, Mr Shakespeare,’ Pinkney said. ‘You are full of surprises.’ He nodded towards Andrew. ‘And see what a pleasant surprise I have for you here.’
Shakespeare threw himself down beside Andrew. This was no time for greetings. Their eyes met, then he set about powdering his weapon.
To their left, a detachment of English pikemen, their eighteen-foot poles raised in the attack position, drove forward into the Spanish trenches. It was a sight to strike terror into the stoutest of hearts, but the defenders merely drew their swords and fought hand to hand, at close quarters. The main gate had now been opened and English marines and soldiers were pouring through. The Spanish were hugely outnumbered, but fought with desperate courage. Even though their captain was dead, no white flags of misericord were raised; no lives were pleaded for.
The fighting raged for five hours. It was slaughter. Blood lay thick, like a coating of red, sticky paint, daubed across the compound and ramparts. Every inch was hard won for the English and the French.
By late afternoon, Norreys and Frobisher had control of the fort. Both the general and the admiral were wounded, but continued to lead their men.
As soon as the way was clear, Shakespeare grasped Andrew by the arm. ‘Come with me. You have done enough here.’
Andrew hesitated. He was under military command now. He looked at Pinkney for orders, for approbation.
Pinkney merely nodded. ‘Take him, Shakespeare. I had thought to leave him to the wolves when I discovered his connection to you, but I tell you this: I have never met a better soldier.’
Shakespeare looked hard into his eyes. ‘What are you, Pinkney? Norreys says you are loyal and strong, but I saw you kill a bound and unarmed man in cold blood. It was simple murder.’
‘He was a traitor, an enemy of England. I saved him from a worse fate on the scaffold.’
‘He should have had a trial. Every man deserves that.’
‘A trial arranged by Mr Topcliffe, perchance? And execution, too … the bowelling, the cutting out of the living heart, the quartering of the body. I tell you, I did Mr Lamb a kindness.’
Pinkney’s eyes were ruthless and cold: the unremitting eyes of a soldier who had survived battles through hard brutality, who would never surrender, never
give quarter. When Shakespeare looked at Andrew, he saw something of the same. He had to get him away from this before he was lost for ever.
In the distance, from below the cliffs, there were gunshots and shouting.
‘I still have Spaniards to kill.’ Pinkney shook Andrew by the hand, then led his men forward to the cliffs, where the last of the defenders had fled.
Boltfoot sat at the back of a cockboat as the mariners rowed hard for land. Other ship’s boats were all around them, heading for the shore at the bottom of the cliffs.
Dozens of Spaniards were diving and jumping from the rocks into the sea. They bobbed in the surf, struggling to rid themselves of their armour and helmets as they waded away from the English onslaught, fleeing like hares before hounds. Shots peppered the waves around them. Now and then a man cried out, then sank into the boiling red water.
Boltfoot watched grimly. The mariners in the boats leapt out as they reached the exhausted Spaniards in the shallows, then grappled with them, holding their heads under water, drowning them one by one until the sea was awash with sixty or seventy floating bodies. Frobisher arrived on the rocky shore, supported by two men.
‘That is enough. No more killing,’ he said.
There are no more to kill, thought Boltfoot. Never had he seen a crueller day.
Chapter 47
LANTERNS WERE LIT all through the fleet. Aboard each ship, there was music – viols, lutes, mandolins. Sailors sang and danced. The marines drank themselves into a stupor, each one embellishing tales of his valour or mourning a lost friend.
Shakespeare and Andrew were among a dozen men crowded into Frobisher’s cabin. The admiral lay in state, complaining loudly as the surgeon dug a bullet from his hip bone. Shakespeare’s arm was around his boy’s shoulders. He barely recognised him. Andrew no longer looked like a boy, but a hard-bitten soldier, broad-shouldered, lean and silent.
In the distance, they heard the boom-boom of charges detonating; the pioneers were busy laying mines to blow the fort to rubble. Meanwhile other detachments buried the dead while the wounded sought treatment. The watch stayed alert, for it was feared that Águila could still come at them and try to take their rearguard by surprise.
The toll of dead showed that four hundred Spaniards had died and sixty English. The French had suffered disproportionately, losing hundreds of men in the earlier skirmishes. After Frobisher called his ceasefire, six Spaniards were found cowering among the rocks and were spared.
‘I think you need a brandy, Andrew,’ Shakespeare said.
He nodded. ‘Yes, thank you, sir.’
‘You do know I tried to find you? I searched every byway in the shire of Oxford looking for you. I found a girl—’
Andrew suddenly looked up. ‘Ursula Dancer?’
‘She’s in England, safe. You will see her.’
‘She saved me, Father. She saved my life.’
Shakespeare clasped Andrew tight to him and held him.
Boltfoot had stayed on deck. He wouldn’t drink with the officers in Frobisher’s cabin. Shakespeare strolled out to him. A mist was drifting in along the strait. In the distance, the lights of Brest came and went as the fog thickened. There was a chill in the air. Shakespeare handed Boltfoot a pouch of tobacco. He accepted it gratefully and proceeded to fill a pipe. He was thinking of Jane and baby John. He had to get home.
‘Where is Mr Ivory, Boltfoot?’
Boltfoot gestured to the far bulwark. ‘Playing dice. It seems he can no longer hold cards properly, so he will have to devise a new method of cheating. He is a pimple on the world’s buttock, and a dog of a man.’
‘Well, at least he saved your life.’
‘Not as many times as I saved his.’
Shakespeare smiled. ‘Tell me about this man, this Lieutenant Millwater,’ he said.
‘They’ve patched him up and locked him away, master. They reckon Frobisher will string him up in the morning.’
‘Then I had better see him now. Andrew, stay with Boltfoot. Get drunk.’
Above him there was a chattering noise. Doda was in the rigging, eating titbits given her by the mariners. After the fighting, Shakespeare had brought the little monkey from Eliska’s chamber. He would leave her here, aboard the Vanguard. She would make a fine ship’s pet.
Shakespeare knew Morgan Millwater, but he had no idea why. Millwater’s eyes were closed and his breathing was strained. He lay on the floor of his makeshift cell, curled up, clutching his wounded side. Shakespeare could tell he was in great pain and wondered whether he would last long enough for his appointment with the hangman.
‘Mr Millwater?’
The man opened his eyes and the face half turned. Yes, Shakespeare had seen him before. He knew the profile of that face, with the light hair falling about his shoulders. His features were delicate and handsome. But where had he seen him? The name meant nothing.
Then Shakespeare remembered. He had seen that face just once, and then fleetingly. He had been walking out of the hall of Lathom House. His name was Walter Weld, he had been the household’s Gentleman of the Horse and he had left before Shakespeare could question him.
More than that, he now knew, this man was Spain’s chief spy in England. Under various names, he had wormed his way most successfully into the body of England. Until now.
‘Who are you?’
‘My name is John Shakespeare.’
The injured man nodded his head slowly, each breath more laboured as he raised an effort to speak. The words came out slowly.
‘Ah, yes … I recall. You were to come over to Spain. Eliska turned you …’ Millwater laughed, then cried out in pain. ‘Get me out of here, Mr Shakespeare.’
Shakespeare smiled. ‘I fear you are under a misapprehension. Unlike you, I am no traitor. You were duped by a pretty face, Mr Weld.’
Millwater groaned. A dribble of blood fell from his lips. ‘For pity’s sake … have you brought water, ale? I am dying here.’
Shakespeare handed him his own cup of wine.
‘Has the surgeon seen you?’
Millwater shook his head.
‘Can you sit up and talk?’
‘Bring me brandy … to dull the pain.’
Shakespeare signalled to the guard who stood by the door. ‘Get a flask of brandy.’
The guard was clearly reluctant to leave his post.
‘Fear not. This man is dying. He is going nowhere.’
The guard bowed and backed away.
‘So, Mr Millwater. You had designs on the perspective glass. How much did the Spanish offer you? A great many ducats, I imagine.’
Millwater said nothing. Shakespeare watched him and waited. At last the guard returned with brandy. Shakespeare knelt at the wounded officer’s side and put the neck of the flask to his lips. Millwater drank, then gasped, then drank again, desperate for a taste of oblivion.
‘Will you talk now? Aboard this ship, you had a confederate named Janus Trayne.’
‘Murdered … by that dog … Frobisher.’
‘And in Lancashire, you had some purpose. Were you hoping to gain the secret of the perspective glass from Dr Dee? Or were you there, perhaps, to murder Lord Strange, the Earl of Derby?’
The words provoked Millwater into movement. Gasping with pain, he struggled up to a sitting position. Shakespeare could see now how gaunt he was, how close to death. And yet his eyes were on fire.
‘Murder the Earl of Derby … why would we do that? He was our leader … our king-in-waiting … I would sooner have died a thousand deaths than harm him …’
‘But he betrayed Richard Hesketh.’
Millwater slumped back. Cold sweat beaded his brow. His clothes were streaked with blood. ‘He had no option … Hesketh was a fool. We tried to stop him … He believed himself sent by the Society of Jesus … He would not hear us.’
‘So you believe Hesketh was sent by others – men hostile to the earl?’
‘You know it to be true.’
‘Who?’
> ‘Lamb knew. Somehow he found out, but he would not tell me. I think he did not like me, nor trust me. We were made of different stuff. My mission was to help Spain and to bring my lord, the Earl of Derby, to his rightful place on the throne of England. Father Lamb sought only to save souls.’
‘There was a letter, a coded letter from Lamb to his masters in Rome. Speak now what it meant, and die with the truth on your lips like a Christian.’
Millwater’s eyes closed again. He was sliding down the wall. Shakespeare put an arm around him, trying to prop him up.
‘Who are you, really, Mr Millwater? Tell me now. There are many more questions I must ask you. Tell the truth and make your peace with God.’
But it was too late. Millwater was dead.
Chapter 48
SIR ROBERT CECIL was silent. He sat at his table in his efficient and sparse apartments at Greenwich Palace, staring at Shakespeare. He sighed and shook his head.
‘What are we to do with you, John? I was dismayed when I heard that you had abandoned Dr Dee in Oxford to go scouring the countryside for your boy.’
What would you have done in my place, Sir Robert? The words remained unspoken. This was a time to listen, not talk. Otherwise he might say something he would come to regret. Shakespeare stood stiffly before his master.
‘And then you perform an act of remarkable valour, going into the enemy fort knowing you had little chance of survival. Truly, Her Majesty is delighted. She has demanded that I tell you as much and wishes me to heap favours upon you.’
Shakespeare bowed. Seconds passed and the atmosphere welled unpleasantly between them. He knew what was coming.
‘But I cannot square it,’ Cecil said as though the words were wrenched from him with a tooth-puller’s pelican. ‘We have a dichotomy. As hard as I try, I cannot come to terms with your dereliction of duty at Oxford.’
‘There was no alternative, Sir Robert. I would to God there had been. I did not have time to take Dr Dee elsewhere. And he was well guarded. I judged him safe.’
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