Revenger

by Rory Clements

  “Such as?”

  “Let us talk awhile.”

  Shakespeare shrugged his shoulders. “As you wish. Start by telling me how much Winterberry was going to pay you for your daughter’s hand.”

  “Five thousand pounds, I believe, though such details are men’s business. We have seen none of it, and never will.”

  “What did he hope for in return? Did he believe your daughter loved him? He is an austere man.”

  “All men are the same when you strip away the attire, be it Puritan broadcloth or courtly taffeta. It is lechery and vanity. He wanted a pretty maiden for his bed and he wanted connection to our family name. He had already been to the College of Arms to see how he might adopt my husband’s armorial bearings. But then he did not know of Amy’s feelings for the boy Jaggard, and nor did we at first.”

  “Now he lies buried at the crossroads, for taking his own life and another’s, though the truth is very different.”

  “He does not lie at the crossroads. McGunn has taken his body and given him a burial by the church on Essex’s estate of Wanstead.”

  Shakespeare paused. The silence hung between them. Then, abruptly, he said, “This marriage, Lady Le Neve, did it not trouble you that you were selling your stepdaughter like a…?” He stopped.

  “A whore, Mr. Shakespeare?”

  If she was offended, Lady Le Neve did not show it. “Winterberry is not a young man,” she said, “and in time Amy would have been left one of the wealthiest widows in the realm, to pursue whatever fancies she desired. I know what poverty is like, and I can tell you that it is a great deal worse than the fumbling attentions of an aging man.”

  Shakespeare watched her closely. There was something not right here. The last time he had seen this woman, she had wanted rid of him. “I ask you again, Lady Le Neve, why have you come here?”

  She breathed deeply, as if summoning up some inner fortitude. The silence drifted on until, at last, she spoke.

  “I have no one else to turn to. I thought you might be that rare thing, an honest man. I am scared, Mr. Shakespeare.”

  “You know the name of the killer?”

  “I must tell you in my own way. It is a long story.”

  “Come. Let us go to my solar. We will be more comfortable.”

  They proceeded to the room where Shakespeare most liked to work. Through the west window he saw that the sun was low in the sky. Lady Le Neve, so unlike Catherine in her looks and manner, sat on a settle, and he stood by the cold hearth.

  “We are impoverished because my husband likes to gamble,” she said. “He plays cent, primero, and tables. He will hazard money on the fighting skills of a cock or the speed of a horse. He plays with my lord of Essex’s friends: Southampton, Rutland, Danvers, Gelli Meyrick, his brother-in-arms Roger Williams. They all wager more money than is sensible, huge sums. And Sir Toby is the maddest of them all, for his inheritance was poor.”

  “And McGunn?” Shakespeare persisted, eager to get to the point, the name.

  “Essex told my husband that if ever he needed money, McGunn was the man. There could be no higher recommendation than that. Sir Toby is intensely loyal; he comes from a long feudal line and regards Essex as his liege lord.”

  “And why, pray, does Essex keep the company of a man like McGunn?”

  Cordelia’s mouth was set. “Gold. Essex lives like a sultan of Turkey, with his vast houses, his legions of retainers, his army of knights all liveried in tangerine. Where does he find the money to maintain these men at his command? The Queen keeps him stretched like a bowstring. McGunn keeps Essex afloat, for he has such a burden of debt, he could sink to the depths of the northern seas.”

  “And what does McGunn get in return?”

  “Power, Mr. Shakespeare. Control. Overlordship. The same as he exercised over us. But how would I or anyone else know what desires lie hidden in the cold, dark shadows of Charlie McGunn’s mind? Watch his impudent boldness with great men-you would not think that Essex was the premier Earl and that McGunn was the lowly kern from the boglands of Ireland. You would think McGunn the chief of the two.”

  “And how has McGunn come into so much treasure, Lady Le Neve?”

  “Usury, violence, debauchery. He is as cold-blooded as a snake. He would kill and his heart would beat no faster.”

  “You said you had seen such men before?”

  She stood up abruptly. “I have said enough.” She turned to go. The sun was close to the roofs toward the west of the city. The sky was darkening.

  Shakespeare put up his hand. “No. I want the name.”

  “It is late. I should not have come.”

  “You say you are scared. Well, you are safe here. You cannot ride back alone to Wanstead this evening.”

  “Do you think I have not been out alone in the darkest of nights?” She laughed.

  “There is The Swan nearby.” He closed his eyes. “Or there is this house. There are empty beds this night. You may make use of one, but you will give me the information I require.”

  Her eyes, unabashed, met his. “Yes,” she said. “I will tell you the killer’s name.” She sat down again.

  “L ET ME TELL YOU my story, if you have the stomach for it. I am of the notorious Kett family from Norwich in Norfolk. Have you heard of us, Mr. Shakespeare?”

  “Indeed.”

  “It is a name tainted with treason, but I wear it with pride. Robert Kett was my grandfather and a landowner of wealth. Our family lived well, with landholdings around Norwich and Wymondham. My grandfather’s rebellion, though he would not have called it such, ended all that. When he was hanged in chains from the battlements of Blanche Fleur, all his lands were attainted and given by King Edward to Lord Audley, his captor. My father and his brothers, who had thought they would inherit lands, were brought to impoverishment.”

  Shakespeare refilled their goblets.

  “By the time I was born in the first year of Her Majesty’s reign, we lived in a small cottage not far from Wymondham. My father worked for Audley’s estate as a common farmhand, a serf, and my mother took in weaver’s work. It was a modest enough life, but we had enough to eat and my parents ensured we were all educated in reading and some writing. They taught us, too, that we were better than the place to which we had been brought by fate. There were three of us, all girls, and I was the eldest. The others in the village thought we were above ourselves; they did not like to see maidens with books and mocked us for it. At the age of eight, we had to work on the farm, milking, churning, reaping, feeding the stock, and collecting the eggs. Then, when I was twelve, we were brought yet lower.” She stopped for a moment, unable to find a voice to speak. “Forgive me, Mr. Shakespeare.”

  “Drink a little wine.”

  “The sickness came. The sweat. It pains me grievously to recall it, even now. It took Mother and Father and my youngest sister, all in the space of a fortnight. That left just Matilda and me. We had no help from our neighbors. Even the almoner called me a dirty maunderer, spat in my face, and said he would not give me so much as a farthing.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “We took the road to London, as I thought. But it was no such thing. We joined a band of vagabonds for protection and became runagates ourselves. That is no life. You can have no idea of the cold, Mr. Shakespeare. In midwinter the frost bites so deep that the elders and babes amongst us froze where they slept.” She held a hand to her bare throat, as if overcome by the recollection. “There were men there, and women, too, that would kill for half a loaf. I saw them fight until the blood ran freely into the mud over the ownership of a dead hare. We scavenged for anything and everything. Nettles, insects, all the fruits of the forest and hedgerow, cats and dogs and rats, too. Whatever we could find. I don’t doubt there were some that gnawed on human flesh. There were fifty of us in our roving camp and we were unwelcome wherever we went. If we went near towns, the men would drive us away with whips and mastiffs. If the headborough or foreign officer caught a vagabond man, he
would be accused of every crime committed within the year and be hanged that day without trial. If they could catch a dell, they would treat her no better than a whore, even though she might be a maiden. And we were flogged without mercy. I have the stripes still.”

  “I believe you.”

  “We stayed in the open air. But there was always a hamlet nearby, so they would gather all the farmhands to drive us away. Some were Christian folk, a few, and would give us loaves and ale, but they always told us we must be on our way after our repast. There was no money to be had and we slept beneath hedgerows or in byres if we could.”

  “How long were you on the road?”

  “Two years. Two years that aged me a hundred. I have not even told you the worst.” Her voice broke again. She tried to regain her composure. Tears streamed down her cheeks, yet she did not sob. “My sister…”

  “You do not need to tell me this.”

  “My little sister, Mr. Shakespeare. Poor Matilda. Eleven years. They took her in the night.”

  “The vagabonds?”

  “No. Men from a town. It was in the shire of Cambridge. I do not even know the name of the town. They came in the night while we slept. They came with bats and poleaxes and torches to light the way for their foul designs. We rose from our slumber and gathered our few belongings and ran and ran, as we had done many times before. But there was a fog and the night was dark, and I lost Matilda. I lost her, then heard her voice cry out. I think she had stumbled and fallen and the men were on her like ravening animals. I ran in the direction of her voice, but I became tangled in thorns and could not find a path. In the distance, growing fainter, I heard her as they carried her away. She was pleading, screaming, ‘No, please no, in God’s name no.’ Nothing else, just that, over and over. And I could not get to her. We found her body in the morning.”

  “I am so sorry.”

  She wiped the tears from her face, but still they came. “They had taken all her clothes and left her naked. She was impaled on the prongs of a dung fork. Its handle was buried into the earth like a fence pole, and she was on the other end, five feet off the ground, face-down. One of the two prongs had pierced her breastbone, the other her belly. It was clear to one and all how they had used her before killing her.” She closed her eyes.

  Shakespeare watched her in silence. There was nothing to say.

  “There,” she said at last, looking up. “That is my story. It is the first time I have told it, Mr. Shakespeare. It is how I know about men like Charlie McGunn. It is why I know that the slavering and pawing of an evil-smelling Puritan is better than poverty.”

  “It is a tale of monstrous cruelty.”

  She touched his hand as if trying to break the dark spell she had woven. “Gentle townsfolk do not know what is done in their name. Go to Bridewell one day and see how the vagabonds are treated there.”

  “I know Bridewell. I know how they flog the prisoners every Friday for the entertainment of any who would pay to watch. It is not something I like.” He looked at her bowed head. He wanted to reach out and touch her. Instead, with an effort, he asked, “Are you recovered a little, Lady Le Neve? Can I find you a kerchief?”

  “It is not important.”

  “Your story is not quite finished, is it? You have not told me how you came to your present pass as the lady of a great knight.”

  “It was pure chance, nothing more than that. Pure chance, or perhaps an act of God, who decided I had been punished enough for one lifetime. We were by the roadside in Kent, a few weeks after Matilda’s death. The camp had broken up and there were no more than a dozen of us, looking to pick in the orchards. I was sitting alone at the side of the Canterbury road when a troop of a dozen cavalry soldiers came riding our way. In the past, we would have run ten miles at the sight of the soldiers, for we knew what they might do to the women. But I no longer cared whether I lived or died or who used my flesh. And so I sat there and watched them ride along in their shining armor and mail, their pistols and swords flashing in the sun. They rode past and then the officer called them to a halt. He trotted back and leaned from his saddle to me and asked me what I was doing. I suppose there was something in my looks that caught his eye, or in my voice, which was of a more refined timbre than others on the road. He asked me what my family was and I told him I was a Kett. He knew of the history of my family, for it is a famed story. He asked me whether I could read the Holy Book and play music and dance, which I could. Then he said, ‘Climb up here behind me, mistress.’ ” She smiled. “And so I did, for what did I have to fear? When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose.”

  Shakespeare was not certain he believed this part of her tale, but it was of no consequence and he let it pass. More than anything, he wanted a name. “And now?”

  “Now I will tell you the name of Amy’s murderer.”

  Shakespeare looked at her expectantly, his face set.

  “It was my husband, Mr. Shakespeare. Sir Toby killed his daughter Amy and the boy Joe Jaggard. He beat them about the head with his war mace. I know this for certain, for I found the weapon in his armory, and it was stained with the blood of his own poor daughter.”

  Chapter 26

  S HAKESPEARE COULD NOT SLEEP. HE LAY IN HIS BED, eyes open, staring into the darkness. Two rooms away, Cordelia Le Neve lay in the single bed usually occupied by Andrew Woode. He wondered whether she, too, was awake.

  He thought back to what she had said.

  “It was a matter of honor, Mr. Shakespeare. Sir Toby felt she had brought shame on his great name.”

  “You think he planned it, the murder?”

  “No. On the night of the feast, Winterberry got wind of the state of things and refused to pay the bride price for soiled goods. And so my husband destroyed those goods-his own daughter. He had been angry a long while, but I believe the deed itself was an impulse. He followed them with his mace and bludgeoned them when he saw them naked in the wood. He must have returned later with the poison, thinking to cover his tracks.”

  “And why have you not mentioned this before?”

  She had finished her wine. Slowly, she put down the goblet. “Fear, Mr. Shakespeare. I feared losing my wealth and standing-and being cast out once again into this bleak land where the nobility and gentry live in splendor, while others sleep in the ice and mud and must forage, starve, and die unmourned. But most of all I feared McGunn. I know he will take vengeance for the death of Joe. If he knows my husband is the killer, he will kill us both. I thought at first that that was what you were sent for.”

  Shakespeare thought back to his last meeting with McGunn. “Find Joe’s killer and I will reward you,” he had said.

  “And why have you now come to me?”

  “I could not live with myself,” she whispered. “Inside I was raging, for Amy, for Matilda, for every murdered soul whose death goes unheeded, unmourned, unavenged.”

  “Where is this mace, the murder weapon?”

  “Still among his armaments. Still stained with gore.”

  There had been no more to discuss; this was no time for small talk. “We will go there at first light,” he said. “Let me show you to your room.”

  He had led the way. At the doorway to Andrew’s room, he handed her a lighted candle. For a moment, their fingers touched as the candle passed between them, then he withdrew.

  “Good-night, Lady Le Neve,” he said, and bowed. Time hung between them like that indefinable moment when you chance upon a turning tide and are not quite sure whether it is about to ebb or flow.

  She had reached out and touched his hand, held it, as if she would pull him in. But then she withdrew and smiled. “Good-night, John.”

  As he turned and left her, he thought he heard her say, “Come to me if you wish.” But he carried on walking to his own room, without looking back.

  In the morning, he would have to go with her to Wanstead to bring in Sir Toby for some hard questioning, but now, here, naked in his solitary bed, he was wide awake and doubted he would
ever sleep this night. Soundlessly, he rose and padded across toward the door of his chamber. The candle was snuffed, but he knew this room so well that he did not need light. A loose floorboard creaked beneath his bare foot as he reached the fine oak door. He stood there, listening. He fancied he could hear breathing on the other side. His hand went to the latch and hesitated, as if he would lift it. But he pulled back and reached, instead, for the bolt. Gently he slid the bolt into its slot, sealing the door. He stood there a few moments longer, before returning to the cheerless comfort of his bed. “Come to me,” she had said. He would not. But what if she were to come to him?

  T HEY SAID FEW WORDS as they broke fast together on ale, three-day-old bread, and some cold hard-boiled eggs. The air was charged between them, like the sky before a dry summer storm.

  As they rode out from the stables, he spotted a watcher on horseback a little way along Dowgate. Well, he would just have to follow them, for it would be impossible to evade detection while riding with Cordelia Le Neve at his side. Anyway, such matters were the least of his concerns. What worried him most was what he was going to do about Sir Toby. He had to be arrested and arraigned for murder, of course, but how was that to be effected while maintaining his relationship with Essex? McGunn, too, would have his own ideas about how justice should be dispensed on Joe’s killer.

  In the event, the problem of Sir Toby was taken out of his hands, for he was not at home when they arrived at Le Neve Manor.

  “I am afraid I do not know where he has gone, my lady,” said Dodsley. “He asked for his horse to be saddled up and rode off an hour since. He had a sumpter with his court attire and other accoutrements. He was riding with a purpose, as if he had a journey to make. I am certain it was not a morning’s hunting.”

  “Well, Mr. Shakespeare,” Cordelia said. “What will you do now?”

  “Show me the mace.”

  A hundred or so yards away, the horseman who had followed them sat impassively on his horse. Shakespeare stood watching him a moment and then turned to follow Lady Le Neve into the house.