Prince - John Shakespeare 03 - (18 page)

Glebe hesitated.

‘Answer me or be damned to the comfort of Little Ease, Glebe.’

‘I have met Poley and Frizer, sir. Not Skeres, I never met him, but Poley and Frizer. They are coney hunters, Mr Shakespeare. They are the sort of men I know. I could not avoid meeting them from time to time …’

‘Were they involved in the
Tamburlaine’s Apostle
story?’

‘Not that I know of, sir. That was all Laveroke.’

‘You said he handed you the papers written in his own hand. Where are these papers now?’

‘Destroyed, Mr Shakespeare. Burnt in the hearth.’

‘As you are like to be, Glebe.’ Shakespeare had no time to waste. He had to discover this Laveroke.

‘Let us consign him to your cellar, Nick. I trust it is dank and dark.’

‘Indeed it is, John.’

‘Say nothing of this, Nick,’ Shakespeare said when they returned to the solar without Glebe. ‘I fear there are those that would come after him, for I am not certain Morley took his own life. Keep him alive and keep questioning him. He may know more.’

‘About the gunpowder blasts?’

‘That and the supposed prince of Scots. There is no difference. Can it be mere coincidence that one man feeds such stories to Glebe?’

‘No, it cannot be mere coincidence.’ Henbird poured two cups of brandy and handed one to Shakespeare. ‘I have some news for you, John.’

‘The servant I asked you about, Oliver Kettle? I know he has left the Sluyterman house.’

Henbird settled his corpulent, well-attired frame back into his thronelike chair. ‘I had him followed. And where do you think he went? All the way to the Guildhall for the Lord Mayor’s banquet, where he served as a waiter.’

‘Tell me more, Nick.’

‘They take on day staff for the big banquets. Many of those employed on such nights have positions elsewhere in the homes of the city merchants. Your Oliver Kettle was one of those.’

‘But now he is missing.’

‘Wait, there is more to the story. On the night of the banquet, my man watched Kettle as closely as he could. As you can well imagine, this was not easy, for the watcher was neither a guest, nor a serving man. He is, though, a close acquaintance of the Common Sergeant at the Guildhall and so he enlisted his aid.’

‘In return for a turkey cock or two?’

‘Or three or four, John. The sergeant is a stout fellow. He and my man were able to observe the evening’s proceedings and keep a discreet watch on Kettle. And they discovered something of great interest. Kettle was making a collection. Somewhere between the suckling pig and the swan hearts with syrup of pears, they saw him huddled with a merchant on his way to the house of easement. And then, over the course of an hour, he spoke to others, six in all. And in each case money was passed to him.’

‘Which merchants?’

‘John, be careful. I cannot abide these merchants in all their ermine-clad satisfaction. They are too pleased with themselves. Yet they are not without power for all their softness of belly; these are some of the richest and mightiest men in the city. They have fortunes that could buy the war chest. In their own way, they wield as much force as a Cecil or a Devereux.’

‘Name them.’

‘I have been to speak with two of them – Sir Gerald Bookman and Tolly Weaver. They gave me the same story. They laughed it off. They said Kettle told them he was collecting alms for distressed mariners and they gave him a little money. It was a simple story but unbreakable – unless you wish them arrested and tortured for what would appear to be little or no reason. I have not been to the others yet and I do not intend to.’

Shakespeare was silent for a moment. He had come up against the power of wealth before. No, he could not have the men brought in on such evidence; nor would he, anyway. It was no crime to be charitable. The key to this was the man Kettle. Who – or what – was he collecting for?

‘My man and the sergeant watched to see more of Kettle’s movements – who he approached, where he went …’

‘But they lost him.’

Henbird nodded gravely. ‘He went to the kitchens and was not seen again. None of the cooks or the other serving men could say where he had gone. They knew him as an occasional worker there, but nothing more about him.’

‘What do you think, Nick? What’s happening here?’

‘There is considerable unrest about the strangers. The placards outside the Dutch church and now the powder outrages … There is a fever in the air. I have spoken to some of the poultry traders here. They are wary what they say to me. I think them reluctant to be involved in any way, which is understandable, but one or two have confided that they hear things in the taverns and ordinaries about rabble-rousing. Some speak of a new Wat Tyler or Jack Cade, feeding off the fears of the merchants and the resentment of employed men whose wages have been cut, or whose jobs have been lost. My instinct is that there is something in this, some organisation bubbling up into insurrection. If you asked me to guess, I would say Kettle was collecting for them and that the merchants who gave their gold knew very well what it was for. Distressed mariners be damned. The money is buying gunpowder to blow up Dutchmen.’

‘Then this is even bigger than we feared. This is not merely the usual mob of apprentices spoiling for a fight.’

‘A great deal bigger, John. That is my honest worry.’ He paused. ‘Drink your brandy. You have suffered most grievously, and I am sorry …’

Shakespeare nodded stiffly, then downed the spirit in one shot. There was, for a moment, silence in the room. At last he spoke. ‘Do you think it worth going back to the two merchants, Bookman and Weaver?’

‘Possibly.’

‘I think you should go. Appeal to their God-fearing natures. Explain that if they don’t help you, they could end up in something so deep it will unsettle their comfortable lives. And find Oliver Kettle for me.’

Henbird enjoyed the smooth heat of the brandy slipping down his throat. ‘I shall also ask about if anyone has heard of a Laveroke …’

‘Do that, Nick, do that.’ Henbird was right, Shakespeare thought as he refilled his brandy. There
was
a fever in the air. ‘Does this all come from the Escorial?’ he said, expressing his reflections aloud. ‘I know what Mr Secretary would be thinking …’

‘He would be thinking that we are under attack.’

‘And I would have to agree with him.’

It was early evening, a fine evening now that the grey cloud had moved away. The sun was high and the land was warm. No more than a few white clouds drifted on the light breeze.

Boltfoot left his horse at a livery stable, all the time closely watched by Warboys, so that he had no hope of slipping away or getting a groom to take a message for him. Then they doubled back to Brick Lane, where they were joined by eleven other men, all of whom he had seen in the workshop and none of whom were introduced to him. They seemed a strange group, men of different ages and sizes. The only things that united them were the old hagbuts and pikes they brought, their common working men’s clothing of leather and wool jerkins, and their obvious deference to Warboys.

Together, they marched north and east, skirting the fields that fringed the urban areas outside the city wall. Now they were in the countryside to the north of Houndsditch.

Boltfoot heard the distant boom of a cannon. As they drew nearer, the intermittent crack of musket-fire grew louder. They were approaching the long brick wall surrounding Artillery Yard, to the west of Spital Field.

‘Now we’ll try your mettle, Mr Cooper. Now we’ll see whether you have the eye of a hawk or the fumbling eye of a mole.’

Boltfoot mumbled in a non-committal way. He knew his worth in the heat of battle. He had staked his life on many an occasion when ships came broadside and the grappling hooks lashed them together for hand-to-hand fighting. He would fear no man in armed close-quarters combat.

There were other trainbands in the area. Hundreds of men were out this day with the militias of the great livery companies. These were the men who would defend London should Spain ever invade. Slightly apart, keeping themselves to themselves as if looking down on the Londoners, were troops raised by the noble families from the shires, all identifiable by their bright tabards and fluttering pennants. Outside the yard, pikemen and halberdiers rehearsed their deadly craft – parry, thrust and chop. Archers, too, reminded those who thought the longbow had had its day that the whisper of an arrow could be every bit as deadly as the bang of a musket-ball. Within the yard, a few artillery men were working on an array of cannons. Also in the yard, a hundred or so arquebusiers stood idly talking, awaiting their turn to step up to the mark, rest their matchlock muskets on notched props and fire half a dozen balls at a range of targets.

There were others here – food sellers with bushel bags of fruit and bread, whores, alemen – all trying to earn a few pence from this ritual, which had become so much a part of London life since King Philip first threatened to send an invasion armada back in the 1580s. All this army of part-time English warriors required was good leadership and cohesion, for they had fighting spirit in great measure and were rapidly acquiring martial skills.

As they arrived in the yard, Warboys nodded to a group of a dozen men, who came over and mingled with the group he had brought. He turned to Cooper. ‘Do you want to show me your skills with a matchlock hagbut or are you content with your caliver?’

‘What I would most like, Mr Warboys, is a little more information if I am to hazard my life with you. This is a ragged band. I do not mind fighting for England, but I do not wish to have my belly slit open and my trillibub spilled into the Tyburn dust for a group of worthless vagabonds.’

‘All in good time. All will become clear. But I can tell you there is nothing treasonable here. You are risking nothing by training with us. No man who sees us could think us anything but another of the many trainbands honing their aim. What true Englishmen is not out at the targets on such a fine summer’s evening? What man would not defend his country from enemies without and enemies within?’

For the next two hours, Boltfoot took his turn to fire at the targets, along with the other men. They did not talk with him much. Finally, Warboys handed him a tankard of ale. ‘Here you are, Mr Cooper. You have earned that. Not only are you a good craftsman, but you are a fine shot, too. What else do you know? Have you dealt with ordnance, with powder?’

‘Aboard ship, aye, I was proficient enough, but there were plenty of men who knew more than me.’

‘Well, go now and sup, then later, you shall make acquaintance with Mr Curl. I think he will like you well. In the meantime, I have other work I must attend to.’

Chapter 22

C
ECIL’S MAN
C
LARKSON
was waiting for Shakespeare at Dowgate. He was on horseback. ‘I have never seen Sir Robert so agitated, Mr Shakespeare. He awaits word from the Perez faction and none comes. He says you must go to Essex House and bring the Spaniard forth.’

Shakespeare was incredulous. ‘Sir Robert knows well that I cannot go to Essex House. I would not be admitted.’

‘He is adamant that you bring Perez to him. I think he does not care how you do it.’

‘He demands the impossible.’

Clarkson smiled with resignation. He was one of the Cecils’ oldest retainers, having worked for Sir Robert’s father, the Lord Treasurer, Burghley, before being taken on by the son. Shakespeare had always liked him and could not be angry with him; he knew he was only relaying a message.

‘Well, come in and take a little wine with me, Mr Clarkson. Let us think about this.’

‘I fear I must hasten back to Sir Robert to tell him that I have communicated with you.’

‘Tell him my reply, if you will. And tell him, too, that I have apprehended Glebe and have him in safe-keeping. He talks of receiving information from a man named Laveroke. Ask Sir Robert if he knows this name, for I do not …’

Clarkson bowed, shook the reins and was gone.

Shakespeare watched him go, then stepped inside his house. He stayed just long enough to take sustenance, kiss the children and try to reassure Jane that she would be hearing from Boltfoot soon. Then he rode for the Strand.

Ellington Warboys waited outside the Tower. It was almost ten of the clock and the curfew would start soon. At last the constable, fat and plodding, approached him furtively. He looked about to make sure he was not observed, then stretched out his greedy hand. Warboys placed two angel coins in his palm. ‘There’s your pound, master constable. Free passage this night.’

‘Three angels. It’ll cost you three angels. The price is up.’

Warboys had been expecting this. ‘You have no men, constable.’

The constable held out his hand for more. ‘Three. Or do you wish me to call in the provost-marshal and make search of your supposed brandy barrels?’

For a brief moment, Warboys considered whether it might be wise to cut the constable’s throat and be done with him. Instead he formed his scowling mouth into what he intended as a smile. ‘Very well, three it is. But be sure of this: the price cannot go up again.’

‘Well, now, that’s for me to say, ain’t it. Strange coves you’ve got to move your casks. Foreigners are they?’

‘Just do what you’re paid for and keep your questions to yourself.’

‘Aye, well … I don’t like it.’

‘Take the money, constable, for I pledge you this: if I go to the gallows, you’ll be there with me.’

The constable grumbled. His hand folded over the three coins that now adorned it. He glared at the thin figure of Warboys, then snorted and ambled off.

It had been like this for a week now. Warboys’s workers travelled by night when the tide was with them. There were five of them, and they had a small barge at their disposal. This night, as with every night for many days, they transported barrels from the great warehouse in Crutched Friars and loaded the barge at the east side of the Tower. Night after night, they travelled with their deadly cargo, joined the others to do their construction work, and then returned with the tide in the morning, for the next load.

The barrels weighed between fifty and a hundred pounds each. In all they had three hundred and thirty barrels to move downriver, unseen. As in every other ward of London, the watch and the constables were notorious for their idleness and incompetence. All the same, they could never be taken for granted and needed to be fed garnish. That was Warboys’s task. He paid them every evening. In return the constable looked the other way when the carts rolled past with the barrels. Whether or not he believed the casks held brandy or wine from France, it did not matter. So long as he believed this was some kind of smuggling operation, to avoid duty. The garnish had to be generous, for any questioning would quickly reveal the truth of what was going on. Had the constable thought for a moment they held gunpowder, his attitude would have altered sharply.

Warboys returned to the great dusty warehouse. The workers wore dark, sombre gowns. They were Scots and they kept their voices low, for their strong accents would seem out of place in this town. They looked at him apprehensively. He nodded to them and the carts began to trundle. Warboys watched them through his wide, fishlike eyes, and betrayed no emotion. Yet he had worries. This was taking longer than planned. He lifted the flagon he carried at his waist. It had been full of aqua coelestis when he set out. Now there was little more than a mouthful left. He downed it in one.

‘I can go no faster with the workers I have,’ he had told Laveroke. ‘If I am to make more haste, you must let me have the use of two or three of the more trustworthy English lads.’

‘No. None of them can be trusted. Even you …’

‘You know me better than that, sir.’

‘Do I?’

So the Scots would have to redouble their work rate, for the law’s forbearance could never be taken for granted. They had to work with speed as well as stealth. They were willing enough, for they had a hunger for vengeance in their bellies and their hearts. Get the work done. Carry the bricks, carry the powder, carry the iron. Get the
Sieve
ready. ‘Work hard for me and you will be repaid in the only way you desire,’ Warboys told them. ‘You will have your retribution. You will have justice for those you loved.’

Francis Mills was unhappy. In his dreams, he honed a butcher’s filleting knife and slit the throats of his wife and the grocer who lifted her skirts and took her every day in the back storeroom of his shop. He woke gasping for breath, certain that their blood was drowning him. And then, by morning, he was as irritable and fatigued as if he had not gone to bed at all. How could he do the work required of him by Sir Robert Cecil when all his nights were haunted by death and all his days tormented by visions of their sweat-glistened skins and the dirty sounds of their fevered moans and piglike grunts?

If he could get away with it, he would kill them both. He could smell the grocer on her body whenever he was in the same room as her, smell the man’s seed wafting like the salt stink of the sea up from her cunny. At times he wondered what he believed in. He was no longer sure what was right and what was wrong. The Commandments told him not to kill, yet they also told his wife to commit no adultery. Should the adulterer not face God’s wrath?

In front of him on the table he had the ledgers from the Three Mills gunpowder site. His eyes ached from studying them by candlelight. There was no doubt that powder had gone missing. Sarjent insisted that Knagg was the guilty man, but there was nothing here to prove that. All that was certain was that an amount of powder had been produced and a lesser amount had arrived at the Tower. Knagg’s disappearance did not look good for him, however.

Shakespeare entered the room that served as Mills’s office in Cecil’s mansion on the Strand. Mills looked up at him, something close to pity in his gaunt eyes. ‘John,’ he said, ‘I am sorry for the manner in which I spoke to you earlier.’

‘It is of no consequence.’ Shakespeare gazed at Mills strangely, as if surprised that the man could communicate a normal human emotion. He noted that he was yet more skeletal than usual, his plain, almost Puritan doublet hanging loose about his frame.

‘Your wife, John … I wish I had words.’

‘There are none. Do not say anything.’ Shakespeare walked to the window and looked at the teeming street below. Somewhere out there was the man who had killed Catherine. The thought tightened his sinews. He turned back. ‘Sir Robert wants me to bring Perez to him, or the Cabral woman – or both. She said she would return with the information we need, but of course she has not. Now they are in Essex House and I cannot get to them.’

‘No man’s land. Neither of us is welcome at Essex House. We would be dealt with poorly by the sharp end of a pikestaff.’

‘If we send a servant, he will be ignored. The message will not even reach Perez. As far as Essex is concerned, Don Antonio is his property. He will wring every last drop of advantage from this Spaniard. He will bring him to court and he will take credit for all the tittle-tattle he can get from him about the royal courts of Spain and France.’

‘Which is why I have had another notion. I have spoken with Rick Baines …’

Shakespeare put up a hand. ‘Baines! He is a villainous rakehell. He is Essex’s man. He will do nothing to help us.’

‘You are wrong. Baines is no one’s man. He will do anything if the price is right. I offered him five marks, he demanded ten. We settled on eight.’

‘He will bring Perez to us?’

‘No, but he has told me a way to him.’

Shakespeare was doubtful. ‘Indeed?’

‘Perez will be at the royal races at Greenwich tomorrow. There is to be the celebrated race between Great Henry and this unknown filly Conquistadora. All London talks of it. Essex bruits it about that the Barb will beat the Queen’s hobby, and she threatens to box his ears for speaking thus. There is no doubt she will be in a tempestuous rage if her horse loses. To be beaten by any horse would be bad enough, but to be beaten by a filly named Conquistadora would be beyond bearing.’

‘How can Baines be certain Perez will be there?’

‘Because he has been with him at Essex House.’

Shakespeare was still doubtful. ‘They will be expecting us, though. Baines will have mentioned our interest.’

‘No matter, you will find a way to Perez. And then there is the clockmaker …’

Shakespeare leant forward, suddenly painfully alert. ‘Have you found him?’

‘It is not as easy as it sounds. The clockmakers are mostly members of the Blacksmiths’ Company, yet the names they supply to me are of little use. These men build nothing but the clocks on church towers, working in iron and steel. They tell me we should be looking to the refugees from Holland, France and Germany to build a clock such as the one used in the powder blast, for it had the nature of a household table clock, in which different metals are used. They would be the men experienced in such work, using copper alloys. I am told there are a few in Blackfriars and I shall seek them out. But, in truth, they work quietly and alone.’

There had been a brass wheel among the parts found embedded in Catherine’s body. Mills knew this.
Shakespeare looked at him a moment, then strode to the door. It was getting late and he was close to exhaustion.

Mills stared desolately at the opening door. ‘John, I do not know how to say this, but I wish it had been my wife at the Dutch market.’

Shakespeare wavered, his hand on the latch. He knew all about the infidelities of Mills’s wife. It was an open secret in this building. Of a sudden he was struck by the absurd irony of their situations, also by the pathos of Francis Mills, a man who would watch without emotion as a man was racked to the very edge of damnation, yet went home to grovel abjectly before the mocking laughter of his sluttish wife. For all his power and razor wits, he was impotent before her. Shakespeare almost felt sorry for him. He could not find a kind word to say; his spirit was presently too arid to bring comfort to others. Yet he looked across the room and met Mills’s gaze. ‘You do not have time for these domestic grievances. Bring this clockmaker in. Bring every clockmaker in the realm to Bridewell and search their souls. And find me a man named Laveroke.’

‘Laveroke?’

‘Luke Laveroke. Glebe said he was the source of his information. Do you know of him?’

‘The name means nothing.’

‘Well ask about. But mostly, bring me the clockmaker …’

‘I pledge it.’

Shakespeare shook his head. ‘Why do you not find yourself some young maid, Frank? Why do you bother with her?’

Mills emitted a short, hollow laugh. ‘Because I love her, John. Because I love the bitch-whore the way a drunkard loves strong ale.’