Shakespeare was becoming increasingly irritated. “And the man she met. What was he like?”
“I paid him little heed, but I would say he was not as tall as you. He had a long beard and long hair, and quite red. I couldn’t tell you more. Except he was in workman’s clothing.”
“Very well, Mistress Hardy, that will be all. If you see her again, send word to me.” He had had enough of the woman. She was a poor witness for detail, but he was left believing that she did, at least, honestly believe she had seen Eleanor Dare.
As he walked toward home, he realized he was being followed. Each time he turned around, a darkly clad figure on the other side of the road also stopped and melded into the busy crowds. He was not unduly concerned, except that it would make it a little more difficult to travel to the Chelsea household of Bess of Hardwick and the lady Arbella Stuart undetected.
Chapter 11
C ATHERINE SHAKESPEARE KNOCKED AT THE DOOR of the house in Holborn where last she had seen Anne Bellamy. An old man opened it slowly and shuffled forward into the daylight, carrying a stick. Somewhere behind him, from the depths of the house, a dog barked. The man was bent forward but looked up at Catherine from dull, watery eyes.
“Yes?”
“Master Basforde, it is I, Catherine Shakespeare. We have met before. I am seeking Mistress Bellamy.”
He paused, as if trying to recall where he had heard her name, then said curtly, “She’s not here.”
“When will she be back, pray?”
“She won’t be back. You’ll find her at Westminster. Gone to Mr. Topcliffe’s fine house.”
Catherine felt uneasy. Anne had been arrested in January and held for questioning by Topcliffe in the Gatehouse Prison, but she had been freed on bail within the bounds of Holborn. Catherine had visited her twice at these lodgings, been welcomed here by this old man, Basforde Jones. Then, last week, Anne had told her that Father Southwell was living nearby at the home of a great family, where he was safe, but was preparing to go further afield in England, to bring the sacraments to the faithful in the Midlands and West Country. Anne said she had begged him to say a mass at her family’s home in Uxendon before he set out on his journey. She would break her bail and slip away for one night and meet him there. Would Catherine come, too? Catherine immediately said yes, the idea both thrilling and terrifying her, for she was well aware of the possible consequences. Only the overbearing-intolerable-intervention of her husband had prevented her going.
Catherine frowned in disbelief. “Topcliffe? Has he taken her again?”
The man’s grumble turned to laughter. “No, she went of her own accord. Have you not heard? Her belly swells by the day, so Nicholas tells me.”
“Nicholas?”
“My boy Nicholas, Nick Jones.”
Catherine felt sick. Nicholas Jones, Topcliffe’s contemptible assistant. And was he saying that Anne Bellamy was with child? How could such a thing have happened? She looked closely at the leering old man.
“May I enter your home?” she said. “I would wish to speak more on this.”
The old man stepped aside. “By all means, mistress. All are welcome here at my humble abode.”
She stepped into the dark hallway. She saw the eyes of the man’s mastiff in an inner doorway and sensed malevolence. The dog barked louder. The old man hobbled over to it and beat it about the head with his stick. It whimpered, then lay down and was quiet.
“Did I tell you that my Nicholas is to come into money? A scryer with a glass ball told me my boy would be rich one day, and so he is to be. A very grand gentleman he will be, I am sure.”
An awful thought took shape in Catherine’s mind. If Anne really was with child, could Nicholas Jones be the father? He was thick-set, sly, and shared Topcliffe’s taste for cruelty and the shedding of blood. Could sweet, innocent Anne have allowed herself to be debauched by such a monster?
“I am sure she will have a pretty baby and we shall save it from the clutches of the Rotten Chair. The dirty little drab…”
Catherine exploded in a rage. She pushed the man full in the chest with both her hands. “How dare you talk of her like that? It is you that has brought her to this! You and your foul son and Topcliffe.”
The old man slunk back into the shadows, his stick raised defensively. “She is a grubby little whore, mistress. A grubby little whore. We have all had her, so that none will know who is the father of her bastard.”
“No. It is not true.”
“She’s a bitch in heat, that one, dripping for it. All the time…”
For a moment, Catherine believed she could summon up the strength to kill this man. Take his stick from him and beat him to death with it, just as he beat his dog.
The urge terrified her. She froze where she stood. She had nothing more to say; she must kill him, or go. She looked at him there, cowering in the shadows with his surly mastiff cur at his side, four eyes in the dark like the eyes of Satan’s little demons. Then she turned on her heel and walked away, back out into the street. She closed her eyes a moment and stood there, shaking. Her heart pounded and she felt faint. She had seen into the first circle of hell, here on Holborn Hill, just outside the city walls of London.
T HE GREAT HALL at Essex House blazed with light. Extravagant candelabra, each with dozens of candles, glowed and flickered like a sea of sparkling gemstones. Liveried servants hovered everywhere with goblets of the finest wine and trays of delicate sweetmeats. Music from two dozen viols wafted in the air above the drowning chatter of three hundred revelers.
John Shakespeare stood at the doorway, at the edge of the throng. Even at the royal court, he had not seen such splendor, and his attire-he had taken out his old court doublet of embroidered blue, black, and gold-seemed poor stuff in comparison to the magnificent clothes on display here.
“Well, well, Mr. Shakespeare, you have made it to the court of Queen Lettice, I see.”
He turned to find himself gazing into the mound of flesh that was Charlie McGunn’s ill-formed face. “ Queen Lettice, Mr. McGunn?”
“Be under no illusion, she is the sovereign here. The She-wolf reigns. We are all her subjects.”
A tumbler bounced past, springing from hands to feet, then over again onto his hands. But Shakespeare hardly noticed. He was more astonished-dismayed, even-by McGunn’s irreverent language. If Sir John Perrot was sentenced to death for calling Elizabeth “a pissing kitchen woman,” how much worse would it be to pay homage, even in jest, to the Queen’s cousin and sworn enemy Lettice Knollys? “I should be careful of your tongue, Mr. McGunn, lest it be cut out. I fear even my lord of Essex may not be able to save you.”
McGunn clapped him hard on the back. “You are an innocent doddypol, Shakespeare. I cannot believe Walsingham ever had such a simpleton as intelligencer.”
Shakespeare had heard enough. He walked away into the crowd, taking a cup of wine from a bluecoat on his way. The viols stopped and a man took to the richly draped stage, which encompassed the width of one end of the hall, not ten feet from him. At the two sides of the stage heralds blew trumpets, and the crowd immediately hushed and turned to see the man.
He was dressed as a jester, in multi-colored costume. Bells jangled on his cap and brightly patterned sleeves. “My lords, ladies and gentleman, pray silence for the She-wolf.”
A slow drumbeat sounded and a bier was borne on stage by four men dressed as Indians from the New World. They wore breechclouts-loincloths-of soft hide, and their hair was shaven on the sides and raised into a bristly central strip from front to back, all topped by a single pheasant’s tail-feather. On the bier, a woman reclined in state. She was adorned in fine court clothes and a wolf mask. The crowd of guests roared with laughter.
The bearers lowered the bier to the stage floor, and the She-wolf alighted. With a delicate step, she threw back her head and let out a great howl, like a wolf baying at the moon. She removed her mask and spread wide her arms, her long, elegant fingers upturned: Essex’s mother, Letti
ce Knollys, granddaughter of Anne Boleyn’s sister Mary, and red-haired like her cousin Elizabeth. Yet far more beautiful. Her features were soft and fair, her eyes aslant, her mouth set in the warm smile that had enticed men all her adult life.
Shakespeare took a long sip of his wine and watched as Lettice, almost fifty years old but as lovely as a woman half that age, welcomed her guests and invited them to enjoy “a little masque for your delight, penned by one of our most estimable poets and players…”
Lettice left the stage to a thunder of applause and was immediately followed by a cast of tumblers and players hurling themselves onto the stage in a riot of knockabout entertainments. Then suddenly there was silence again and all the players stood as still as trees in the forest. “But hush,” said the jester, cupping his ear with a hand. “Who do we hear coming into the wood? Why, methinks it is the Queen of the Faeries.”
As the viols started up again, quietly at first, all eyes turned to the stage entrance at the right, where three figures emerged, two of them dwarves dressed as monkeys, both with chains about their necks. The chains were attached to leashes held by the third figure, black-clad like a witch with pointed hat and boils about her haggard white face.
“Bow down, bow down, kneel one and all,” the jester said. “It is the Queen of the Faeries! And she has her familiars, little William and Robert Puckrel.”
Shakespeare was aghast. One of the monkey figures had a long white beard; the other a hunchback. It was plain for all to see that they were meant to be William Cecil-Lord Burghley-and his son, Robert. As for the Queen of the Faeries, ancient and haglike with red hair and a whitened, pox-ridden face, it was intended to be taken as none other than Her Majesty, Gloriana, Queen Elizabeth of England. This was high treason. This could cost a man or woman their bowels and their life. You could be put in the Tower just for watching and have your eyes scraped out with a spoon for laughing. Shakespeare looked around him, expecting to see mouths agape in outrage. Instead he saw a sea of faces creased in laughter and hands coming together in deafening applause.
He watched what followed in a kind of trance. Half of him wanted to flee as far and as fast as he could and never return for fear of being separated from his head, yet the other half was fascinated. Could Elizabeth’s credit in England have fallen so low that her courtiers dared stage such a masque behind her back? And doubly astonishing was the thought of who was behind it: Elizabeth’s most favored pet, the Earl of Essex himself, in league with his mother, the She-wolf Lettice.
As he looked around the hall, Shakespeare saw faces of great fame: Essex was at the center of things, surrounded by a pack that included the Earls of Southampton and Rutland; the brothers Francis and Anthony Bacon; the dashing and dangerous Sir Henry Danvers and Gelli Meyrick-all known to be his close associates at home and on the field of battle. Somewhere in the distance, too, he saw Charlie McGunn, conversing like a conspirator with Essex’s straight-backed military aide Sir Toby Le Neve. Nearby, Essex’s sister Penelope Rich-four years senior to her brother-talked animatedly with the handsome Charles Blount. And then, with a mixture of relief and alarm, Shakespeare saw his own brother, William, in a group that included Essex’s wife, Frances.
On stage, the hag rattled the chains of her monkeys. “I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman,” she said, her voice ringing out falsetto like some eunuch from the seraglio. The crowd laughed with brazen humor, then the hag’s voice turned deeper, like a market stall holder calling out his wares, and she-or he-threw up her skirts to reveal a pair of bare, hairy legs and a pizzle that would not have shamed a bull. “But I have the balls and prick of a king, and of a king of England, too.”
Shakespeare, horrified, made his way through the crowd of revelers to his brother’s side. He nodded toward the stage and spoke quietly in his ear. “William, I hope this is nothing to do with you.”
His brother raised an eyebrow. “It’s that fool Greene. Look at him over there, preening with his villainous friends as he puts his neck further into the hangman’s halter.”
Shakespeare followed his brother’s eyes. The playmaker Robert Greene was holding court with his mistress Em Ball and various other unsavory characters. This summer revel of Essex’s had certainly brought out a curious array of pleasure-seekers. Will touched him on the shoulder. “Take care, brother.” Shakespeare raised his eyebrows. “And you,” he said softly. He watched as Will wove his way toward Southampton, where he was immediately welcomed by that group. He, in turn, switched his gaze to a settle at the side of the room. Frances, Essex’s pretty mouse of a wife, was there now, sitting alone, fanning herself.
“Mr. Shakespeare, how lovely to see you,” she said as he approached to pay his respects.
He remembered her from her childhood days when, as the well-loved and cosseted daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham, she seemed like a perfect doll, assisting her mother, Lady Ursula, with her embroidery and the running of the family’s households in Seething Lane and Barn Elms. Shakespeare had always liked her quiet ways and vaguely thought that, in a previous age or another place, she could have made a rather splendid Mother Superior in a convent.
“It must be five or six years, my lady.”
“Oh please, Mr. Shakespeare, you always called me Frances as a girl. It seems very strange to me now to be called aught else by you.”
Shakespeare smiled. “As you wish, my lady.” He thought she did not look at all well, very pale and drawn.
“There,” she said. “You see, you cannot even manage a little thing like that.”
“Well, you would have to call me John by way of return, and that might not be at all proper. People might talk.”
She laughed lightly. “Indeed, I had not thought of that. What would the gossips make of such a thing? Do come and sit with me. You are so much taller than me and I feel a little too weak to stand. I have not been well. My mouth burns and my bile is bitter. I see little things in the air, flying things, but my physician tells me they are not there. Do you see them, Mr. Shakespeare?”
Shakespeare sat down, two feet or so from her. “Do you mean bees, my lady, or birds? Or butterflies? Moths, perhaps?”
“No, no. These are lovely little things. They have tiny candles in their wings, which are made of gossamer silk.” She patted the settle next to her. “Though I am not at all well, I do not have the pestilence, Mr. Shakespeare. You may safely sit a little nearer to me.”
He shuffled a bit closer. “My lady, I had not thought such a thing,” he said, though her face did, indeed, look worryingly pale and moist.
“No? Well, many other people nowadays do think so when one has a little summer sweat. If it had been the plague, I fear I would be in my grave by now, for I have been feeling weak and sick for some two weeks and I believe the pest is more like to take a mere three days to kill one off.” She swatted at something in front of her eyes with her fan. “You see, they are everywhere.”
“What are, my lady?”
“The little flying things with the tiny lights. You must see them; do you not think them pretty?”
“I do not see them, my lady,” Shakespeare said slowly.
“Oh well, you are fortunate, then, for though they are lovely to look on, I consider them over-familiar. Dr. Forman says they are sprites and has given me tinctures to ward them off.” She broke off. “Mr. Shakespeare, you are looking at me as if you think me quite mad.”
“I am sorry, my lady. I am a little bewildered. I do not see these little flying things.”
“Well, let us say no more about them. As for the plague, you must burn herbs in all the rooms. You must go from room to room with rue and herb of grace and throw water outside the doors and along the street.” She smiled but it seemed a strain for her. “But I cannot bother with it. I might as well have the plague for all the attention my lord and master pays me. You know, Mr. Shakespeare, it is a curious thing, we were all with child together in this year past. My lord’s sister, Penelope, good Bess Throckmorton-now Lady Rale
gh, of course, to the Queen’s disquiet-and my lord and master’s concubine, whom I cannot bear to name, though she stands here in this room. Why, tell me, is it that my own little Walter lived but a few days and died in my arms, while theirs lived? Do you think his spirit lives in the flying things?”
Shakespeare did not know what to say. He knew, of course, of Ralegh’s child and illegal marriage; he knew, too, that the ever fecund Penelope had brought forth a new babe into the world, and he had heard gossip of a bastard born to Essex’s amour Elizabeth Sewell. But the fact of Frances’s new child, and its death, had eluded him. In the end, he merely said, “I am sorry, my lady. The ways of God are mysterious indeed.”
“Yes, they are. And now I might follow my little Wat and lie beside him at All Hallows, for I grow more feeble by the day.” They were silent together. Shakespeare would like to have comforted her, but had no way of doing so. She gave another of her heavy, sickly sighs, then spoke a little quieter, as if imparting a confidence. “Tell me, Mr. Shakespeare, what do you make of the revels?”
He tensed. “They are interesting, my lady.”
“The crowd makes my heart beat so fast I can scarce breathe at times. The revels… I do hope you are not uncomfortable with my question.”
“I confess I have not seen their like.”
“My father, if he were alive, would be in a very dark humor indeed to see such drolleries. I pray that no word of this reach Her Majesty’s ears, for she would take it very ill, I fear. I did not like those monkeys. They were malign.”
“I cannot disagree with you, my lady.”
She patted his hand again. “Still, it is harmless, I am sure. No one could be more devoted to the Queen than my lord of Essex. He would not allow anything untoward.”
Shakespeare knew otherwise, but confined himself to remarking neutrally, “Indeed, your good husband is noted for his close attachment and loyalty to Her Majesty.” He watched as Essex hove into view like an ungainly galleon. The Earl’s white silk and gold thread doublet, heavy with diamonds, pearls, and other stones, glittered in the candlelight so that he quite outshone his wife.
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