‘There was an intruder. The maidservant Dorcas Catton was attacked.’
‘Dorcas attacked?’
‘A man dragged her, screaming, to the front of the house. He cut her nightdress from her and threw her into the snow.’
‘Someone did this to Dorcas? Why?’
‘That is what I must discover. She is terrified and will say nothing. It is possible that worse would have occurred had the assailant not been disturbed. We must deduce that the attack is linked to the death of Signor Jesu.’
The earl picked up his tankard of ale and drank deeply, then spluttered and coughed.
‘My lord?’
He pushed away the plates of food. ‘And so this foul world disintegrates. How can a man eat when old friends are food for worms? If you are hoping to question me, Mr Shakespeare, you will be disappointed. I have nothing to say to you about Giovanni save that I mourn his passing. More than you can imagine. If you are able to discover the murderer, then I will be delighted to attend the hanging and applaud when he dances his jig.’
‘You can at least tell me a little about his origins, my lord. This is a murder inquiry. I need information.’
‘His origins? He came from the fetid gutters of Venice. His mother was a whore, his father unknown. I gave her ten gold ducats and he was mine. It brightened my day simply to behold him. He was my trinket and my boon companion. But now he is dead and no grieving by me will bring him back. And that is all you need to know.’
‘My lord, if you will talk to me, it may assist me in finding his killer. His relationship with Dorcas interests me greatly. Were you distressed when he brought her with child?’
‘Mr Shakespeare, do you think I am a country girl swooning over a penny romance?’
‘It merely occurred to me that such an event might have made things difficult in this house. I am trying to divine whether anyone in your employ might have had cause to do Giovanni harm. For instance, it seems Marot the cook bore hatred for him.’
‘This is kitchen tittle-tattle. I will not listen to it. If you believe you have evidence against one of my retinue, arrest him and have him arraigned in a court of law. Now, will you please leave me and let me tend to my head, which is filled with exploding gunpowder.’
‘There is one last matter, then I will leave you in peace.’
The earl emitted a long sigh that metamorphosed into a low howl of genuine pain and anguish.
Shakespeare put his purse on the table and loosened the tie. He tipped the contents into his left hand and removed the sliver of metal that he had found in Giovanni’s chamber. He held it out to the Earl of Oxford. ‘Do you know what this is?’
‘You are overstepping the mark, Shakespeare. I may be a shipwreck, but I still have influence – and I will use it if necessary.’
‘Please, bear with me. For the sake of Giovanni ...’
‘Very well. It looks exceedingly like a little slice of silver. And if this is some riddle, then I swear I will run you through.’
‘This is the clipped edge of a coin. Your good friend Giovanni Jesu had been clipping. In his chamber, I found a pair of strong scissors that would serve such a purpose. He was committing this crime under your roof.’
‘Giovanni was clipping?’ The earl’s voice was incredulous.
‘Cutting the edges from coins, then melting down the accumulated silver and either selling it as bullion to jewellers or counterfeiting coins himself.’
‘God’s holy blood, Shakespeare, I know what clipping and coining is! Do you think me a sheep-wit? I will not be talked down to by a menial assistant to little, common-born Robert Cecil. Do you understand me?’
Shakespeare was undeterred. He knew all about the earl’s mercurial humours. ‘These are points I must put to you.’
‘You think me diminished, but I tell you this: I could have been a god among men: a sun poet to your paltry brother’s half-moon; a warrior lion to Drake’s braggart mouse; a Caesar of state to Cecil’s gong farmer.’
Shakespeare was losing patience. Subservience could only be feigned so long. He gave the nobleman a hard, cold look. He could have said: ‘I know you and what you are. You might have been a poet, a warrior or a statesman but you are none of those things and never will be. You are mocked by your peers, regarded with disdain and dismissed with disgust.’ These words would have been true. But he kept his silence.
What he did say stung almost as hard. ‘These are serious crimes: murder, abduction, clipping of coins. All are felonies. Each one could take a man to the rope, and so I will not be deterred from my inquiries. I have letters patent from Sir Robert Cecil and if need be I will take you in for questioning.’
The Earl of Oxford was on his feet, dagger in hand. But the table stood between him and Shakespeare.
‘Put your blade away, my lord, or I will take it from you and I may do you some injury.’
‘Try it, puppy!’
Shakespeare ignored his bluster. The earl made no move to come around the table to attack. ‘Let us examine what we know,’ Shakespeare continued. ‘You are brought to penury are you not? Some might wonder whether clipping and coining could restore your fortune; or at least pay your servants’ wages.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I am certain your lordship heard me.’
The earl thrust the dagger down hard into the table. It stood there: quivering, shiny steel. ‘You accuse me of counterfeiting. You come into my home and defame me.’
It was time to pull back. Shakespeare smiled. ‘I merely suggested what some might wonder. I must investigate all possibilities, discard all false leads. I was not accusing you, merely examining the facts.’
‘Do not fence words with me, sir. Do you think I have not killed a man? Do you think I would hesitate to kill you?’
‘Oh, yes, I know you have killed.’ Many years ago Oxford had run his sword through an unarmed man in cold blood. He had been saved from the scaffold through the influence of the Cecil family. Somehow the court was convinced that the victim ran on to the sword as a way of committing suicide.
But Shakespeare had no fear; the earl was a shadow of the deadly young buck he had once been. ‘And so now we can be clear: you knew nothing of this felony, this clipping of coins.’
‘No, in God’s faith! No, I did not!’
It was the reaction Shakespeare was looking for. Fury and indignation. ‘Then I am pleased to retract the words I spoke if they in any way implied otherwise. My apologies.’ No, whatever else the earl had done, he had not been a party to the crime of clipping coins or minting money. But that did not mean he was innocent of murder.
Chapter 7
The snow had stopped falling but lay thick all along the road back to London. Few wagoners had ventured out this day, but those who had were finding the going hard. Drays and carts floundered and struggled to make headway, others were left abandoned at the side of the road. Gangs of men shovelled the snow to the sides; Boltfoot’s progress was slow and painstaking.
When at last he arrived close to the city wall at Bishopsgate, he spotted a ward constable standing by the gate, his halberd sloped over his shoulder. He wore heavy boots and a quilted leather jerkin and smoked a pipe as he oversaw the clearing of snow to keep wagons, a few farm animals and riders moving in and out of the city. Boltfoot approached him and reined in his mount.
‘How now, constable.’
‘Good day to you, stranger. Though not so good for any man in a hurry.’
‘You might be the one I seek.’
He blew smoke into the cold air. ‘Is that so?’
‘I would talk to the man who found a corpse near here of late. A Moor, shot dead and left in the snow.’
The constable seemed to stiffen. ‘And why would you wish to know about that?’
‘My name is Boltfoot Cooper. My master is John Shakespeare, from the office of Sir Robert Cecil. He is inquiring into the death.’
‘Well, you may tell your master that it has all been dealt with to the s
atisfaction of the justice and the sheriff. The dead man is unidentified and a known felon. The matter is closed.’
Boltfoot did not bother to point out the contradiction. ‘The matter is not closed. Nor is the man unidentified. He was a gentleman associate of the Earl of Oxford and a great favourite of the court. Now answer my question, constable, and save yourself pain.’
The constable’s mouth turned down sourly. ‘As I said, the matter is dealt with and the body is with the searcher to dispose of as he thinks best. If you wish to know more, speak to Mr Peace at St Paul’s.’
‘Would you defy the wishes of Sir Robert Cecil?’
The constable was about to turn away, but suddenly he bridled and pushed out his chest and braced his halberd. He was not a tall man, but he was powerfully built and looked like a fighter. ‘Are you threatening me?’
‘No, but I require your assistance.’
‘Cecil, eh? Don’t think you can scare me with your noble names, Mr Cooper. I have a name to give you if you wish, though you will not like it. Mr Topcliffe, that is the name I shall lay at your dirty crippled feet.’
‘Topcliffe?’ It was, indeed, a name to send alarums jangling through the brain of any man, and particularly Boltfoot. Topcliffe had more than once sworn to destroy Shakespeare and his family. A long-standing mutual loathing ran deep between the two men.
‘Aye, he is a friend of mine,’ the constable said. ‘And I can call on him any time I choose. He don’t take well to his friends being discomfited, and no more do I. He takes care of his own, does Mr Topcliffe.’
This was not what Mr Shakespeare wanted. He desired answers, not a brawl. Boltfoot decided to try to pacify the constable. ‘You got me wrong. My master and I mean you no harm. All we wish is to know where the body was found – and who found it. There would be sixpence in it for you.’
The constable hesitated. ‘The blackamoor was gentry, you say? Didn’t look like no gentleman I ever saw.’
‘That’s because he was a Venetian gentleman, from the Italish and Romish lands. Name of Giovanni Jesu. In the retinue of Oxford, who is cousin to Her Majesty.’
The constable moved closer, his smoky breath in Boltfoot’s ear. ‘It’ll cost you more than sixpence, Mr Cooper.’
‘Nine pence.’
‘Half a crown, that’s what I want. And an ounce of sotweed.’
‘A shilling and buy your own tobacco.’
The constable held out his hand, sheathed in a heavy sheepskin glove. ‘Put it there.’
‘I pay after you talk, not before.’
Reluctantly, he withdrew his leather palm. ‘Very well. Scavager Billy found the corpse.’ He nodded through the open gateway. ‘Out there in the city ditch somewhere.’
‘Where exactly?’
‘He’ll tell you.’
‘Where can I find the scavager?’
‘I’ll take you to him. And you can buy me a gage of ale while we’re about it.’
They found Scavager Billy attending to a barmaid on his lap at the Broken Wheel. One hand was up her skirts, the other down the front of her low-cut chemise.
‘Billy, put her down, you’re not a crab. There’s a man here wishes to ask you a question.’
The scavager, a heavy-set man with burn scars all over his face and arms, looked up and grinned at the constable. ‘What is it, Tom?’ He did not seem inclined to remove his hands but the barmaid had other ideas. She laughed and pulled herself away from him, then walked off into the taproom throng.
‘This is Mr Cooper, Billy. Wants to know where you found the body of that blackamoor.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Seems he was a gentleman. Now don’t ask questions, just do as the man says and I’ll give you a penny for your troubles.’
‘It’s cold out there.’
‘Tuppence then. Now move your great pig’s arse, Billy.’
‘It were here.’ Scavager Billy pointed at a patch of snow banked up against the outside of the wall at Houndsditch, a hundred yards from Bishopsgate. ‘Hereabouts, leastwise. Can’t say for sure now that the snow’s come so heavy again.’
‘How did you find the body?’ Boltfoot demanded. On the walk here he had begun to wonder whether Billy was a little simple.
‘The apprentices found it. They were throwing snowballs at each other. I was nearby, clearing snow from the road and collecting waste and they started pelting me. Then one of them grabbed a handful of snow and got the corpse’s foot instead. I tell you he was so scared he yelled like a goodwife in labour.’ Billy gave a high-pitched laugh like the giggle of a small girl.
‘So you dug out the body?’
‘Aye. Frozen hard like a statue it were.’
‘How was the body clothed?’
The scavager looked to the constable, who nodded encouragement.
‘Naked, wasn’t he, Billy?’
‘Aye, that was it.’
Boltfoot wasn’t having it. ‘He was clothed when he was shot. So someone must have taken his clothes. That’d be worth a bit, a fine suit of gentleman’s apparel. Wouldn’t you say so, Billy? Easy to sell that in London.’
Billy glanced again at the constable, who placed himself between the scavager and Boltfoot.
‘I think you got enough information there, Mr Cooper. Scavager Billy’s told you all he knows.’
Boltfoot ignored the constable and pressed on. ‘Where are the apprentices? Let us hear what they have to say about whether the man was clothed or naked.’
The constable put a hand to his sword. ‘Give me the coin and we’ll all be going our separate ways, Cooper.’
‘When I’m done.’
‘God blind you, I say you’re accusing Scavager Billy of thieving clothing from the dead, which would be the most ungodly act I ever heard of. I’ve a mind to arrest you for slander and affray.’
Boltfoot looked the constable in the eye without blinking, then turned again to Scavager Billy. ‘What about the crown of holly around his head?’
‘That weren’t me,’ Billy said. ‘Tell him it weren’t me, Tom.’
‘Course it weren’t you, Billy. That’s just how you found him.’
‘Aye, that’s how I found him. It were Mr Topcliffe put it there. Said it was what the heathens do. It was their way.’
‘Are you saying Topcliffe was here when the body was found?’
The constable pushed the scavager away. ‘Stow you, Billy, you’re talking like an old gossip.’ He turned to Boltfoot. ‘He’s gibbering, Cooper. He don’t know what he’s saying.’ He pulled out his sword and pointed the tip at Boltfoot’s chest. ‘Now you best be going, lest you want to try your pirate sword against my good Sheffield steel.’
Boltfoot did not move. ‘Well, was Topcliffe here?’
‘The devil’s blood and tongue, but you’re a persistent beetle of a man.’ The constable re-sheathed his sword. ‘No, no, he wasn’t. Billy’s confused. We saw Mr Topcliffe later in the day after Billy brought the body to me on a handcart. We told Mr Topcliffe what we’d found, that’s all. The body was discovered just the way it was when it was taken to the searcher at St Paul’s. Naked but with the holly coronet on its head. Now, we’ve said enough. Give us the shilling and be gone, Cooper. Or by Satan’s prick, I will have you in gaol within the hour.’
As Shakespeare strode through the manor house, the words of Frank Mills on the quayside at Greenwich Palace kept returning to his thoughts. Mr Secretary had his doubts ...
Mills was right, of course. Mr Secretary Walsingham, dead these past five years, had always suspected any foreigner of being a potential spy. It was his job to be suspicious. Such caution had kept England safe on many occasions.
But Giovanni Jesu? How could he have been the agent of a foreign power? He had been but a boy – no more than twelve or thirteen years of age when he arrived in England with the Earl of Oxford in the year 1577. Unless, of course, he had been recruited as a spy at some later date. The question was this: had Walsingham had a specific reason to suspect Gi
ovanni? Perhaps Mills or someone else who had worked with Walsingham in those days might know. First, however, he needed to talk with Dorcas Catton.
He found her feeding the baby in her chamber at the back of the house on the first floor. Shakespeare was struck by the beauty of the little girl. ‘I think her the prettiest babe I have ever seen, Mistress Catton. What is her name?’
Dorcas did not look up but stroked the child’s eager head as she suckled hungrily at her breast. Her fellow maidservant, Agnes Pooley, was sitting nearby on the bed, darning a pair of netherstocks. Shakespeare turned to her.
‘She won’t speak, master. Not a word passes her lips. The child is called Giovanna, named for her father.’
‘Did you know Giovanni well, Agnes?’
‘Oh, yes, sir.’
Agnes was about ten years older than Dorcas, perhaps thirty, with a round, maternal face that spoke of a warm, caring nature. The sort of face that a woman such as Dorcas might confide in. It was time to separate the friends. ‘Come then, with me. Let us leave Dorcas with the babe. There is no need to press her if she does not wish to speak.’
They sat in the withdrawing room with the door shut. Agnes was ill at ease. It was probable that the only time she had ever been in such a room was to lay the fire or to dust and polish. Now she was sitting on a settle, talking face to face with an important man from the office of a Privy Councillor.
Shakespeare had no desire to scare her, yet he knew that after a lifetime doing the bidding of her masters, she would be naturally intimidated. He spoke kindly to her, but firmly. ‘We must do all we can to help Dorcas.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘She has been subjected to a terrible assault and she is very scared. We must discover who did this so that we can ensure it never happens again. It is up to us to help her, Agnes. You and me. Will you help me in this?’
‘Yes, sir. Of course, sir. I would do anything for Dorcas.’
He settled back in his chair at the table and smiled at her. ‘Now it is clear to me that the incident in the night was connected to the death of Giovanni. Are we both agreed on that?’
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