Sarjent lifted Boltfoot with astonishing gentleness and strength and carried him out of the woods. Boltfoot could see more clearly now where he was. They were on the side of a small hill that rose from the estuary plain of the Thames. He knew this stretch of the great river, not far from where the Thames met the North Sea, having sailed it under Drake. From the low sun to his right, he deduced they were on the northern, Essex bank. In the distance, across the water, lay the county of Kent. There were no people here. This bleak land was given over to wild birds and rabbits. The low sun sparkled on the water and highlighted the billowing sails of dozens of ships of many different shapes and sizes, sailing with the wind or tacking against it.
Boltfoot winced even at the light touch of the man’s hands on his back, so severe were his burns. Sarjent carried him up to the brow of the hill, which was not far, and then Boltfoot saw the ghostly remains of an ancient castle. He also saw, in a creek below, a sea vessel, leaning at an angle and stuck fast in the low-water mud. From this distance he guessed it to be a pinnace or bark, perhaps for fishing, though it was large enough for trading. A group of men, ten or so, were working on it, perhaps careening her. Who were they, fishermen?
‘Well, Mr Cooper, I think this ruin will do for shelter.’
‘Just get me home, Mr Sarjent.’ Boltfoot’s voice was weak, no more than a whisper.
‘I fear you are in no condition to journey. You need food and rest. I have seen men with burns on the field of battle. You will need lotions – oils and the like – to soothe you so that your body may repair itself. The old tower will at least give you protection while you regain strength.’
‘Give me water to drink. I can ride. I must get to Mr Shakespeare.’
‘Take it easy, Mr Cooper. We must restore you to health.’
‘My weapons … where are my caliver and cutlass?’
Sarjent carried Boltfoot through the litter of old ragstone blocks and brought him into the remains of what must, once, have been the south tower of a fortress intended to defend the gaping mouth of the Thames.
The tower was broken open on its eastern flank, so that a man might step in and look up through its echoing emptiness to the sky above. The floor was mere dirt. With exquisite tenderness, Sarjent lay Boltfoot down by the stone wall, so placing him that his back was not touching anything. He looked down at him. ‘You may be only a mariner but, by God, you bear your pain with fortitude. And I forgive you my broken nose.’
‘My weapons …’
‘I do believe they are near by, for I saw some stores and armaments as I approached the thicket. I will fetch them and bring you food.’ He nodded in salute, then left.
Boltfoot closed his eyes. He breathed deeply; just the movement involved in filling his lungs was excruciating, yet he had enough presence of mind to know that, whatever his agony, this could not be a safe place to stay for long. His captors, wherever they were now, might well return and he knew they had well-armed comrades. Boltfoot was also alert enough to wonder how Sarjent had found him here, and he was not at all sure that he liked the answer.
He turned on his hands and knees and began to pull himself up, inch by painful inch.
Chapter 30
RICHARD TOPCLIFFE HAD a pipe of tobacco in his mouth and, in his right hand, a branding iron which he was heating in the coals of a cresset.
Ana Cabral had her eyes closed as though asleep.
Topcliffe always enjoyed having guests in this strong room in his home by St Margaret’s churchyard in Westminster. He was proud of his rack, which he had helped design and had paid for from his own purse. Another of his favourites was the pair of high rings against the wall, where a priest might be hung from iron gyves in such pain that he would recant his faith. But today Richard Topcliffe was unsettled. Though he was sixty years of age, his brain was still sharp enough to realise that the presence of this woman meant trouble. He owed much to Mr Bruce for the information he had brought him over the years concerning the location and movements of certain Jesuits and seminary priests, but this could be an unhealthy and expensive way of repaying him.
Topcliffe’s assistant Nick Jones paced the room in hungry anticipation, like a dog awaiting a haunch of prime meat to be thrown by its master. He came closer to the cresset and warmed his hands, then leered at the prisoner.
‘Which instrument shall we use first, Mr Topcliffe?’
Topcliffe looked at Jones with a cold, grim expression as if he was unsure whether to make a merry remark by way of answer or punch him for speaking out of turn. Instead, he did neither, but flicked the branding iron. ‘Always a pleasure to sear a pretty young body.’
Ana was chained to a ring on the floor, her gown splayed about her as though she had just descended in a curtsy. She still wore her eye patch. Without looking at either Topcliffe or Jones, she said, ‘If you touch me with that, I swear I will bring this house down about you. You do not know who you deal with here.’
The problem for Topcliffe was that he was, in truth, painfully aware with whom he dealt. He knew that he could not touch this woman without risking the wrath of the one person in the world he feared – Elizabeth herself. He had told Bruce as much. Bruce had other ideas. ‘Just threaten her, Mr Topcliffe. The woman will tell you everything you need to know before the iron even gets close to her pale flesh.’ Topcliffe was not so sure. The woman seemed less anxious than anyone he had ever brought here, as though she knew very well how powerless he was. She sat on the floor, strangely beautiful with her silver-streaked fair hair, her eye patch and her vigorous, well-formed body. Here, in his strong room, she seemed more like a carefree lady of breeding awaiting a maid to dress her hair than a prisoner fearing the sting of the torturer’s tools. As Topcliffe gazed at her, she opened her uncovered eye and smiled at him.
Topcliffe went cold in sudden realisation that there was only one way for this to end. He turned to Jones.
‘Release her. Unlock her chains.’ The order was harsh-spoken.
Jones, heavy-set, thin-bearded and slick-haired, was taken aback. ‘Mr Topcliffe?’
Topcliffe lashed out with the branding iron, catching Jones on the side of the head. The blow stunned him and knocked him sideways, clutching at his bloody, seared face. Topcliffe moved forwards and grabbed the front of the younger man’s jerkin and brought his smoky breath to within an inch of his nose. ‘Do it. Now. Take my fine guest to the withdrawing room and bring her my best canary wine. Have you no manners to treat this gentlewoman so?’
Jones dabbed a kerchief to his face and scrabbled about for the keys to unchain Ana Cabral. With trembling hands, he knelt before her and thrust the keys into the locks.
‘My lady Cabral, I can only apologise for the poor hospitality offered you by this wretched youth. He will be whipped this day for the way he has treated you. My humble apologies. I will do all in my power to make amends to your gracious person.’
‘Why, think nothing of it, Mr Topcliffe,’ Ana said as her feet were finally freed of the chains and she stood to her full, magnificent height. ‘Your delightful chamber is quite palatial. Quite charming …’
Shakespeare beat at Topcliffe’s door. Behind him stood a squadron of six heavily armed palace guards, supplied by Cecil, who had gone pale with anger when apprised of the abduction of Ana Cabral. ‘Get her out of there, Mr Shakespeare – and bring her to me.’
The door was answered by a woman of middle years wearing the clothes of a serving drab. Shakespeare pushed past her, followed by five of the guards, while one remained outside, sword in hand.
‘Mr Topcliffe told me not to admit anyone,’ the serving woman said helplessly as Shakespeare and his men drove on through the dark hallway.
‘Bring him to me.’
Shakespeare knew where the strong room was. He had been in this house of malevolence before, as a prisoner. He pushed onwards, through its myriad rooms of gloomy, dark-stained panelling. Topcliffe emerged as they reached the entrance to the torture chamber. The door was sturdy, fortified
with thick straps of beaten iron.
‘Open the door, Topcliffe.’
‘I am the Queen’s servant!’
Shakespeare nodded to the soldier nearest him. ‘Open it, sergeant.’
Topcliffe moved forward and tried to bar the door. The powerfully built sergeant, his body protected by a studded leather cuirass, brushed him aside and pushed it wide open.
‘Queen’s servant, Shakespeare! Injure me and you injure the body of the Queen!’
Shakespeare strode in. The room smelt of stale sweat, smoke and old, dried blood. He shuddered at the thought of all the men and women who had suffered here, their agonies licensed by the Privy Council with the full backing of Elizabeth. It was the dreadful paradox at the heart of all Shakespeare’s work. Though he could not abide the use of torture, he was well aware that he was the instrument of a power that employed it. His only comfort? The thought that the enemy, Spain, with its dread Inquisition, was infinitely worse.
‘Search the place,’ he ordered the sergeant. ‘Send your men elsewhere in the house. Tell them to break down any doors that are barred. Use whatever force is necessary.’
The sergeant-at-arms barked an order at his men, then busied himself in the torture chamber, immediately spotting the cresset in which the coals were still hot. ‘Someone has been here, Mr Shakespeare.’
Shakespeare joined him and kicked over the cresset, sending the coals flying across the straw-strewn floor. He indicated with his head to another door. ‘There is a smaller room through there, a cell.’
Topcliffe put out an arm to try to stay the soldier. ‘Do you know who I am, sergeant? I am the Queen’s servant.’
The sergeant ignored him and pushed open the cell door. The room was empty.
From outside, they could hear shouting. Nicholas Jones, hand still clasped to his burnt and injured face, arrived breathless. ‘They are breaking up your house, Mr Topcliffe. Your tables, your settles, even the panelling.’
Topcliffe turned on Shakespeare. He swung at him with his blackthorn cane, but Shakespeare easily parried the blow with his sword. Topcliffe’s face was as white as his hair. His teeth were bared and his voice was a feral growl. ‘You will pay dearly for this. The Queen will hear what you do here this day.’
‘Save your threats for someone else. Your mind is diseased. How can you live with such instruments of evil in your home? The place stinks, like you. You are an obscene old man. Now produce her for me, for until you do, this search will continue.’
‘Produce who?’
‘You know who: Doña Ana.’
‘Why, Mr Shakespeare, you should have said. You have no need to break up my humble home to find my honoured guest.’
Shakespeare touched the point of his sword to Topcliffe’s chest. ‘Take me to her.’
‘But she has gone, Mr Shakespeare. I gave her fine wine and sweetmeats and we conversed politely in my withdrawing room, but she has now departed.’
Shakespeare’s sword point hovered. He raised it a few inches so that it was close to Topcliffe’s throat. His hand was itchy. He could thrust forward now, rid the world of this malign presence for good.
One of the soldiers returned and saluted his sergeant. ‘There is no sign of any Spanish woman. Five servants and that creature.’ He indicated Jones, who skulked behind his master. ‘That’s all.’
‘Where have you taken her, Topcliffe?’
‘I have told you all I know. She left of her own free will.’
‘Keep these two here, in this strong room, sergeant. I will talk with the servants.’
As Shakespeare left the room, he caught sight of Topcliffe from the corner of his eye, whispering close to the soldier’s ear. ‘Queen’s servant, sergeant. I shall have your entrails in my blazing cresset for what you have done this day.’
The sergeant whispered back with equal venom. ‘We’re all Queen’s servants here, Mr Topcliffe. Now stow you unless you want my sword up your arse.’
Shakespeare found himself smiling.
Half an hour later, convinced by the servants that Ana Cabral had, indeed, left Topcliffe’s house, Shakespeare despatched the guard back to Greenwich Palace with a message for Cecil. He left one of their number outside Topcliffe’s door.
Shakespeare mounted his grey mare and headed for the city. He felt a bitter satisfaction at the damage and humiliation he had inflicted on Topcliffe. It had been good to see the defiant courage of the sergeant, uncowed by Topcliffe’s threats, where others trembled merely at the mention of his name.
It was almost dark as Shakespeare rode, but he needed to see Henbird.
He found him in bed at his fine home in St Nicholas Shambles, nursing two yellowing black eyes and a mass of other bruises about his face and body.
Shakespeare looked at him aghast. ‘What happened, Nick?’
‘A Mr Bruce, a noxious Scotsman, came here, said he was a friend of yours … asked me the whereabouts of Walstan Glebe.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I told him nothing. He seemed most discontented. He said he had heard from certain intelligencers that I had him. I rather felt Mr Bruce might have killed me, here in my own home, had my servants not intervened.’
‘I am sorry, Nick. I feared he might be led to you. Where is Glebe now?’
‘Safe in my cellar still, locked beneath the trapdoor. Is that why you’re here?’
‘No – unless he has told you more.’
‘He has said nothing. I suspect he has nothing more to tell, for you have wrought great fear in him. I am sure he would squeal like a piglet if he had aught to squeal about.’
‘I’ll deal with him in good time. It’s Baines I want for the moment. Do you have a way to him? I must tell you, he is not what he seems.’
Henbird attempted to laugh, but winced and thought better of it. ‘Who is what they seem in this world we inhabit, John? Here.’ He tried to rise from his bed. ‘Help me up. I need more brandy.’ With Shakespeare’s assistance, Henbird struggled up from his sickbed and waddled to the door, where he bellowed for liquor. With great effort he went across to his table and sat down beside it on the bench, which creaked beneath his weight. ‘So, what have you discovered about Rick Baines?’
‘He’s also known as Laveroke.’
‘Ah, the man you mentioned before. The one who spoke with Glebe about this prince of Scots. Was that really Rick Baines?’
‘He took us all for gulls, and we fell for it.’
‘Baines always had a talent for being someone else. Who told you this, John?’
‘Our Scots friend, Rabbie Bruce. I would not trust him on much, but I believe him on this. I have reason enough …’ He grimaced, thinking back to the deep, turbid waters of the Thames, the gulping in of foul river water as Baines, or Laveroke, tried to drown him. He shook his head to dispel the memory. ‘The question now is – how do we get to him?’
‘The only way is to put word out on to the street.’
‘Do it. Let it be known you must have his whereabouts – without his knowledge. Offer ten pounds. I will find the money from Cecil.’
‘As you will, John. There is no harm in trying.’
The servant brought brandy. He poured a large measure for Henbird and, at his own insistence, a far smaller one for his guest. Shakespeare looked out the window. It was late. Night had fallen. ‘There is also the matter of the merchants and Oliver Kettle. Did you discover more?’
‘Nothing. I told you. They are rich, powerful men. They close up like English footmen on the field of battle. There is nothing there and will be nothing unless you have them all arrested and brought to the Tower for questioning. Would Sir Robert like that?’
Shakespeare knew the answer to that well enough. This realm was dependent on trade; no minister would get away with such a move against the great merchants.
‘We could have them followed, find out with whom they deal.’
‘John, they are mere money men, they have no part in any of this. If they were more than that
, they would not be handing over a few shillings at a public banquet. They were giving silver to this man because they liked what he said, not because they were actively engaged in insurrection. Their gift was of little more consequence to them than your gift of a farthing to a beggar.’
‘And Kettle?’
‘No sign.’
Shakespeare sipped his brandy. He said nothing. All avenues were closing down. Mills had got nowhere with his search for a clockmaker, Ana Cabral was missing, probably ensconced in the safety of Essex House with Perez – and where was Boltfoot?
Other names crowded in: Topcliffe and his curious connection with the Scotsman, Bruce; the men in Ellie Bull’s room in Deptford – Poley, Frizer, Skeres – there had been no word of them since the inquest, nor any clue as to their motive.
Shakespeare felt he was in the middle of some teeming hell. A picture came into his mind, a diabolical painting he had once seen while travelling in Brabant on a secret errand for Mr Secretary back in the early eighties. He recalled the name of the artist, Mijnheer Bosch. He had never seen the like of this strange picture. It was full of demons, iniquity and punishment; men and women consigned to damnation. Now, as he thought of it, Catherine was there at its centre, her beautiful face so faint he could scarce make out its features. He shook the unbearable vision from his mind.
‘Nick, this is bleak. We fear an attack is imminent, an onslaught far worse than anything yet ventured … and yet I make no progress.’
‘Tell me more, John. Confide in me.’
Shakespeare gazed at him. His battered face looked like a windfall apple that had been kicked by boys and was turning to mush. Henbird could be trusted; his face told its own tale. ‘It is true, I need your help. Our enemies attack on all sides. I fear I am missing something. We must find him.’
‘The prince of Scots?’
‘The tale is bruited all around court.’
‘The city, too. People in the ordinaries and taverns speak of little else. I have heard it said that certain great nobles of the Romish faith are plotting how they may proclaim him King of England.’
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