Shakespeare watched until they had gone. They were heading vaguely north. So this was it; the plot was under way. Shakespeare ran back toward the state apartments. He had to get a message to Cecil, then take a horse and pray he reached Derbyshire-and Arbella-first.
Something caught his eye. Through the downpour, he saw a movement by a doorway into a side staircase of the state apartments. Even in the darkness of night, lit only by the guard’s sizzling brazier, he recognized Slyguff. He would know that cruel-hearted, unblinking stoat of a man anywhere. Where in God’s name was he going? Of course. Clarkson had told him all he needed to know about who among the nobility had the prime living quarters. Lady Frances, the Countess of Essex, was billeted in these apartments, on the second floor. A killing to legitimize a wedding.
In the shadows of the banqueting hall, Shakespeare could just make out Slyguff as he handed something to the guard. He had a curled length of rope slung over his shoulder. As the Irishman slipped in through the doorway, Shakespeare emerged from the shadows and followed him. The guard moved away from the brazier to bar his path.
“I saw the bribe you took,” Shakespeare said in a low, hard voice. “I am an officer of Sir Robert Cecil, and if you do not let me pass, you will hang before dawn.”
The guard scuttled out of his path.
Shakespeare went on through the door. He listened for the sound of footfalls, but he knew how softly Slyguff trod from his encounter with him in the turret room at Essex House on the night of the summer revel. He could hear nothing.
He waited a few moments. Then, silently, he stepped forward and walked up the circular stone stairway. His way was lit by beeswax candles in wall sconces, guttering in the cool, rainy draft. Drawing his sword from its scabbard, he held it in front of him. He reached the top step and looked along the corridor. There was no one there.
The rope came out of nowhere. A noose around his neck, the moment he stepped out from the stairwell. His assailant was behind him, twisting the rope with unreasoning ferocity, pushing him down toward the ground with a foot in his lower back. It would be a quick kill.
Shakespeare kept his footing, just, and swung around, desperately trying to stay upright. He was a tall man, but Slyguff’s wiry body had the tight, ungiving strength of twisted cable. Shakespeare shouldered his attacker into a wall, pulling a tapestry down about his head. Slyguff’s grasp slipped for a moment, just long enough for Shakespeare to push two fingers of his left hand under the noose to save his windpipe from being crushed.
But he was already choking for air and knew he had little time left. Dimly, he saw a figure in a doorway further along the hall, in the light of a sconce. It was Topcliffe. Richard Topcliffe, standing there, pipe in his mouth exhaling fumes, a smile on his wicked face as he watched Shakespeare going down to his death.
Shakespeare could not die, would not die. It was not merely his own life that counted now. Death was nothing. The thought of Topcliffe’s satisfied smirk gave Shakespeare the rage he needed. With the desperation of a wounded animal just as the predator closes in for the kill, he found Slyguff’s balls with his right hand and crushed them as if squeezing every drop of juice from a lemon.
A guttural sound came from the back of Slyguff’s throat, but he wrenched frantically at the rope even as he curled into himself. Shakespeare knew this was his last hope. He slid his fingers out from under the rope constricting his neck. He barely noticed they were rubbed raw by the rough hemp, or the injuries inflicted on his throat that threatened to do for him. He needed this arm free. With a stab of desperation, he elbowed back into Slyguff’s face. Again and again, beating his temple against the wall, he elbowed the man, bearing down on him with all his remaining power and weight.
At last the rope loosened. Shakespeare fell away, panting. He picked up his sword. Topcliffe was coming his way, his blackthorn in his right hand. The grin had not left his face all the while. Shakespeare pointed the sword in Topcliffe’s direction, but he did not have the energy to rise and run him through. Topcliffe pushed the blade away with the silver tip of his blackthorn, then knelt down beside Shakespeare and the silent, writhing figure of Slyguff. He put his left hand over Slyguff’s face and pushed him down into the ground. Carefully, he put the blackthorn to one side and picked up the discarded rope, twisting it once, twice, around the Irishman’s neck, then turned the ends in his fist, so that the rope creaked. Shakespeare heard a sudden crack as Topcliffe pulled Slyguff’s head back by his hair, snapping his neck.
The body went limp, save for the occasional jerking of the legs and arms. Slyguff was dead. Topcliffe released the rope, then picked up his stick and held it to the raised weal circling Shakespeare’s throat.
“I was enjoying that,” he said, deliberately blowing smoke into Shakespeare’s eyes. “Better than the bull-baiting, I fancy.”
Shakespeare expected to be killed at any moment. The blackthorn had a heavy head, like a cudgel, and one blow to the temple would do for him. Yet he had no strength left to defend himself; he had expended all against Slyguff. All he could do was put his hands to his own bruised throat and gasp for breath. He was coughing, choking, his lungs were heaving, and his head was pounding as if he had been struck with a six-pound hammer, but he no longer cared.
Topcliffe withdrew the stick. “You’re soaked through, Shakespeare. Mustn’t go out in weather like this without a cape and hat or you’ll catch your death.” Topcliffe laughed at his own black humor. “Come on, you Papist-loving milksop turd, I need your help to carry this dead weight.”
Shakespeare’s breathing began to ease.
“I’m protecting her, you slow-witted worm,” Topcliffe said, as if reading Shakespeare’s thoughts. “You don’t think Cecil would have left the Countess’s safety in your hands?”
Shakespeare struggled to his feet and twisted his head from side to side, all the while rubbing his neck. He knew how near he had come to death.
“Take the legs,” Topcliffe ordered, sliding his hands under Slyguff’s shoulders. “Come on.”
“Why did you kill him?” Shakespeare demanded, his voice rasping and sore. “We could have questioned him.”
Topcliffe snorted scornfully and blew a cloud of smoke from between his lips. He dropped the body and wrenched open the dead man’s mouth. “Look in there,” he said.
Shakespeare looked into a gaping, tongue-less hole.
“Cut out at the root. You could have questioned him, but he would never have answered you. His silence was assured. Come, Shakespeare, you sniveling boy, pick him up and get him away from here. Sir Robert will not want her ladyship’s peace disturbed by the discovery of a dead Irishman outside her chamber.”
Chapter 36
T HEY DRAGGED THE BODY FROM THE HOUSE UNDER the terrified eyes of the guard. Topcliffe ordered the man to fetch a handcart and a tarpaulin. The guard dropped his pike, which clattered to the stone-flagged ground, and scuttled like a beaten dog into a workshop.
When he re-emerged, they hauled the corpse into the cart, covering it in a heavy sheet of canvas.
“Haul away, Shakespeare,” jeered Topcliffe. “Put your back into it.”
Topcliffe and Shakespeare took one handle of the cart each and pulled it through a side passageway. It was hard going in the rain over the rough, muddy grass and tree roots as they pulled their burden down through the woods to the west of the castle toward the river. Their clothes were soaking, rain pouring down their necks beneath their flattened ruffs.
“These people piss me off,” Topcliffe growled to no one in particular as they reached the river and hoisted the body out of the cart and dropped it unceremoniously onto the slippery bank.
Shakespeare saw the pair of black shears hooked on the dead man’s belt and shuddered as he thought of Jack Butler. And Boltfoot Cooper? Had they also shorn that loyal man of his fingers?
Topcliffe kicked at the body like a football, pushing it with his foot into the edge of the slow-running waters of the stream. “Traitors. Agents of the A
ntichrist, every one of them. What sort of man orders the murder of his own wife?”
What sort of man, thought Shakespeare, has a torture chamber in his own house and laughs and jests as he tears men apart? But all he said was, “An ambitious man.”
“He was going to hang her, make it look as though she had taken her own life in her madness. Lucky I was there, eh, boy?”
The body floated out into center stream, caught the current, and began to drift away. They watched it for a few moments until an arm became tangled in some roots protruding from the far bank, and the body twisted around.
“They’re all the same. Essex and his mewling, dissembling ilk. Noble blood? I’d stick their ancestry up their treacherous arses. Southampton is the worst. Thought he could keep the vile Southwell from my pretty chamber of iron and fire.” Topcliffe barked a laugh. “No one bests Richard Topcliffe-and certainly not girl-boys like Southampton and Southwell. Who’ll fondle the Earl’s little pizzle now Southwell is in my grasp? Your brother, I fancy. He’ll rub him up and down, up and down with a handful of sweet chrism, I shouldn’t wonder.”
Shakespeare stiffened with contained fury. Now the carcass was dumped, he just wanted to get back to the castle as quickly as possible and talk with Cecil. He was breathing easier, but his throat was bruised and he would have a neck as rough as birch-bark for days. He started marching back up the bank into the trees.
“You next, Shakespeare,” Topcliffe spat after him through the rain. “You and your Papist dog-wife and Romish puppies. I’ll have you all swimming like Mr. Slyguff here. I’ll be dancing when your severed parts are parboiling merrily in the Tyburn cauldron.”
Shakespeare turned back, half-sliding, half-stepping down the muddy incline. Taking the powerfully built Topcliffe by surprise, he swung a wild punch at him, catching him on the side of the head. Topcliffe stumbled and sprawled into the mud.
“Your threats have never scared me, Topcliffe, but no one calls my wife a bitch. Learn some manners as you grovel.”
Topcliffe floundered and slid, grasping at nettles and briars as he tried to rise. Shakespeare turned on his heel. Topcliffe lashed out with his arm to trip or catch his retreating foot, but he kicked free and ascended the bank once more into the trees, then strode back toward the dim, flickering lights of Sudeley Castle through the rain-drenched night.
C ECIL WAS AWAKE, pacing his bedchamber in his night-clothes. Clarkson had brought him news of Essex’s departure.
“There is no time to lose, John,” he said when Shakespeare entered the room. “You must be gone to Hardwick straightway.”
Shakespeare told him of Slyguff’s intent on the life of the Countess of Essex. “He now floats in the River Isbourne, the air choked out of him and his neck cracked by Topcliffe.”
“Good.”
“I confess, Sir Robert, I was surprised by Topcliffe’s role in this.”
Cecil shrugged off the implied criticism of his secret dealings with the brutal torturer. “Suffice it to say that whatever you think of him, no one is more loyal to his sovereign. He is the Queen’s servant: his only loyalty is to his Protestant God and his monarch. And he has assisted me in keeping the Countess of Essex alive. We will talk more of it later; there is no time now. But I thank you for your work-you have confirmed all my fears.” He handed Shakespeare a letter, with his seal of office as Privy Councillor. “Now carry this letter to the Countess of Shrewsbury at Hardwick. Ride like the wind.”
Shakespeare’s brow furrowed. “Do you not think I need to take men with me, Sir Robert? Essex’s band is twenty strong men-at-arms.”
Cecil did not smile. “Do you think I want another Battle of Bosworth Field, Mr. Shakespeare? What would happen if I sent you with twenty men, a hundred men? You would start a civil war. Subtlety is required here, sir, subtlety. That is why I want you and not Topcliffe. Arrive before Essex and you can spirit the girl away to a place of safety, which would be the best solution for all concerned. Ride fast. You must stop a wedding.”
P ENELOPE RICH STIRRED in her black sheets and looked at the man on the bed cushions beside her. She ran her elegant fingers through the dark curls that flowed across the pillow. She loved him and wanted more of his children.
The man beside her on the bed at Blithfield Hall in Staffordshire was Sir Charles Blount, a kinsman of her mother’s husband Christopher Blount. Charles had been her lover for two years, their passion all-consuming. At the age of twenty-nine, she had already done her duty by the husband forced upon her by her family and her sovereign, bearing him five children; now, in her prime, she had had her first with Charles.
She smiled in the early evening light and thought of the other man in her life: her younger brother, Robert. She wanted the world for him. His heart was strong but he was so easily-so infuriatingly-distracted. He needed her steel to drive him on to the goal he deserved. It was her life’s work, her great project. One day he would be king, and she would guide his hand.
Three years earlier, she had made an error; she had courted the Scots King, James, with sweet letters and flattery, hoping for preferment if they could raise him to the English throne on Elizabeth’s death. She had nearly come unstuck when word of that emerged. But the close call made her think: Why hand the throne to James Stuart? Why not this family? Her great-grandmother was Mary Boleyn, beloved of a king. Could anyone doubt that Great Henry himself was her great-grandfather? That his royal blood flowed in their veins?
Elizabeth knew it. That was why she scorned them. Penelope’s mother had been banished from court; so had her sister. And was Robert chosen as the Queen’s toy-dog for any reason other than to rub their noses in the Queen’s shit?
The Devereux women had seethed at the injustice of it-every slight, every snub, every humiliating plea for money that her brother had to issue. Why, he had to woo the old hag like a girl to win preferment; it was worse than any degradation endured by a common whore.
And then Penelope had seen a way to repay her; a way to raise the Devereux family to the position that was rightfully theirs. It was the arrival at court of a rather plain, lonely girl who would not be noticed in any room were it not for one thing: her undoubted claim to the succession.
Her name was Arbella Stuart, and many believed her right to the crown to be greater than that of her cousin James Stuart.
Penelope had observed her. She saw the way the awkward young girl looked at her brother, gazing on him adoringly, like a hound-pup stares up at its master-wide-eyed, waggy-tailed, and longing to submit. That was when the plan took shape in Penelope’s clever head. If Robert were to marry Arbella, the union of their bloodlines would be too powerful for any to gainsay, even the Cecils.
But wooing the girl under the watchful gaze of her guardians alone was difficult, so Penelope had had another idea. Robert must court her from afar, with words. And she knew just the poet to pen those words: young William Shakespeare. His verses dripped passion, and he was desperate for patronage.
It had worked. This night, the girl would be lying awake in her bedchamber at Hardwick Hall, her mind full of Robert Devereux, her bold Earl of Essex, her love; wet for him, breathless in her desire to be taken.
A wedding was but the start. It had to be followed through with conviction or it would merely consign both Robert and Arbella to the Tower, just as Ralegh now languished there with his new bride.
They needed a protective circle of men. A Round Table of the greatest in the land; men to stand with them. Southampton and Rutland for their nobility; McGunn for his endless stream of gold; Thomas Phelippes, Francis Mills, Arthur Gregory, and Anthony Bacon for their secret ways; Francis Bacon for his political instincts; Meyrick, Danvers, Williams, and Le Neve for their military prowess.
With meticulous care, wiles, and flattery, she had drawn them in. At last the group was complete: twenty or thirty of the most formidable men in the kingdom, all utterly loyal to her brother. Men whom even the Cecils could not resist.
There would be no arrest warrant i
ssued while these noble warriors, along with their host of retainers and knights, stood together. And if there was resistance, if the issue was forced… well, the throne would come to Robert all the quicker.
There had been one minor hurdle to overcome: Robert’s wife, Frances. Though she was dull, Penelope had always rather liked her. Her instinct was merely to ignore the marriage, have it annulled as unlawful at a later date. That would be easy enough, especially once the crown was theirs. But others felt it might be better if she was out of the way before the wedding.
The last part of the puzzle had been John Shakespeare. Mr. Mills had been insistent that there was no better man in England to organize the vital work of intelligence-gathering. With his brother so deeply involved, it was better that he stand with them, too. And such skills as he possessed would be critical once the crown was theirs. If anyone could protect the fledgling regime from usurpers and rebels, it was a man of his anxious diligence-a man who, like Walsingham, had worked so tirelessly to protect his Queen for so many years. Shakespeare was such a man. Shakespeare would be their Walsingham.
Her brother had not been sure of John Shakespeare; he told her that McGunn had doubts. She had her own doubts, though: doubts about McGunn. Though they had needed his riches, she understood the danger of selling him their souls. McGunn would want much in return, yet the nature of that reckoning had never been clear.
Penelope turned toward Charles and curled her body around his. He was warm. She wrapped her arms around his waist and her hands found his yard, which stirred at her touch. She would like him to take her now, but it hardly seemed fair when he slept so peacefully after their long afternoon of lovemaking.
The rain beat against the walls.
She fancied she heard horses in the distance, but she had imagined that all day long. They would come, she was sure of it. This night, they would come to her on the first leg of their momentous journey.
Revenger Page 28
