Revenger (9 page)

Shakespeare felt somehow as if he were accepting five guineas for a horse he knew to be worth ten. Why would he work for one powerful man against another? The reason was clear. He still cared about this realm and his instinct told him that only one man, truly, had its interests at heart. Sir Robert Cecil. Pray God, he was right in this. “Very well,” he said. “I am your man. Whatever that entails.”

“That is good.”

“But what of the Countess of Shrewsbury and Arbella? Will you assign protection to them?”

Cecil hesitated, as if weighing up how much to reveal. “Bess is aware there is a problem,” he said at last. “But she believes the danger is from Spain, that Catholics would kidnap Arbella and carry her abroad, to mold her as a figurehead for their own cause and insurrection. There may be truth in this. But you must remember, she has ambitions for Arbella. She would wish her to be Queen and has always raised her with that in mind. She nearly ended her days in the Tower when she ill-advisedly agreed for the girl to be betrothed to Leicester’s late son, Denbigh. The question is, has she learned her lesson well—would she countenance another illicit marriage proposal? The answer is that I do not know—which is why I cannot enlist her assistance in this, but I would have
you
go to her and get her away from London to one of her northern estates. She will be safer there. I warn you, though, Bess is a hard woman, as any of her displaced tenants or debtors will tell you. It is not for nothing that her late husband called her a sharp, bitter shrew.” Cecil paused and chuckled lightly. “Fear not, though, Mr. Shakespeare. You have wit and charm. Use it.”

Shakespeare bowed his head. Cecil had stirred something in him, something long buried beneath the daily round of Latin verbs and domestic comings and goings that now made up his
life. It was the thought of returning to the fold, working in the world of secrets once again: the old days of Walsingham and his covert dealings and the thrill that went with them. Yes, he could admit it now: he
did
miss those days.

“Now, ride home, for the world and your wife will be wondering where you are. Clarkson will accompany you, to bring back our horse.”

“Thank you, Sir Robert.”

“As you go, think on this. I have no way of knowing how advanced is this plot. I know, however, that it centers on the belief that the Queen cannot live much longer. Essex wishes to position himself as the next in line. At the moment, I do not believe he plans an assassination. He hopes to marry Arbella, intending to take the crown when Elizabeth dies a natural death. But we all know that it is but a short step from wishing her dead to making it happen.…”

Chapter 9

B
OLTFOOT AND JANE LOOKED AN ILL-ASSORTED
couple as they entered the school refectory. He dragged his foot, while she waddled, her distended belly pushed forward proudly in her thirty-fifth week of pregnancy. Shakespeare, sitting alone at an early evening supper after the ride back from Theobalds, smiled at the sight and called them to him.

“Jane,” he said, “I imagine you have had enough of this ugly old ruffler getting under your feet.”

Jane laughed. “He is worse than useless, Master Shakespeare. He thinks I am made of glass and as breakable, and will scarce let me do my work. Please find him some task away from here. It will bring us all peace of mind, I am certain.”

“A fine thought, Jane. I will do that.”

Jane and Boltfoot had been married five years. She was young still—perhaps twenty-two—while Boltfoot was in his late thirties and looked older; his short, grizzled body had been carved and battered by harsh years at sea. Yet this disparate pair suited each other; their mutual devotion was there for all to see. Sometimes, Shakespeare caught them looking at each other with unabashed affection. If only his own marriage were in such good repair.

Boltfoot appeared disconsolate. He treasured Jane above pearls and was worried about the baby that swelled her belly. He
could not bear the thought of losing this one. Yet he felt helpless to do anything except be with her. Fighting Spaniards and savages was easy compared to this. He blamed himself for the loss of the first child, as if somehow the boy had inherited his bad blood, just as he had taken on the sins of his own father and forefathers in his clubfoot.

“What say you, Boltfoot? Will you undertake a task for me? Can you bear to be parted from Jane’s side for five minutes?”

Boltfoot hunched into his shoulders, his face a picture of gloom. “You are the master, Mr. Shakespeare,” he said in a low voice that betrayed his reluctance to be anywhere but with his wife.

“So I am, Boltfoot. And I have a simple but intriguing mission for you. I wish you to go to all your old shipyard haunts—the taprooms, taverns, chandleries, and wharves of Southwark, Deptford, Blackwall, and beyond—and there talk to whomsoever you may about Roanoke and the New World.”

Boltfoot grunted, which Shakespeare took to be a yes.

“Find me a mariner who has been there, one from the very first voyage when the colonists were carried to their new home, if you can. Or listen for tales. Discover what is being said, what the seafarers believe happened to the souls now lost. Are they dead or alive? If dead, how did they die? If alive, where might they be? I want to know the conditions out there, how they might have survived. Most of all, I wish to know whether any of the colonists might somehow have returned to England.”

Boltfoot looked at Jane, as if hoping she might tell his master that he could not possibly go on such a mission because he was needed here, to look out for her in these last few weeks.

“Thank you, Master Shakespeare,” Jane said. “I am sure it is useful work and it will do us both a world of good. He needs something else to think on.”

“Good. Well, that’s settled. I will talk with you alone regarding the details, Boltfoot.” Shakespeare turned back to Jane. His voice
softened and he hesitated, unsure. “Pray tell me, Jane, do you know where Mistress Shakespeare is this afternoon?”

Jane could not meet her master’s eyes. Her mistress had clearly said she had no wish to speak with her husband. “I do not think she is herself today, master. She says she wishes to be alone. She is with Mary.”

Shakespeare accepted the situation with a smile. “Thank you, Jane. When you see Mistress Shakespeare, please tell her that my thoughts are with her and that I understand. I must go to Essex House but I would see her later, should she wish it.”

“Yes, master,” Jane said, her gaze still averted, then hurried away as fast as her swollen belly would allow.

The sun was dipping and the sky had a hue of golds and reds. Tomorrow would be another hot day. “Let me finish my meats and then we will share a quart of ale, Boltfoot,” Shakespeare said. “I will tell you more of this Roanoke inquiry. It seems we are to go intelligencing again, my friend. You will have to dust down your caliver and hone your cutlass for the fray.” As he spoke, Shakespeare thought he saw a sparkle in the eye of his old copesmate. Perhaps Boltfoot would be happier away from the cares of impending fatherhood after all.

S
HAKESPEARE HAD NEVER
seen a woman more lovely. His first sight of her was at a distance, in profile, along the evening-shadowed long gallery of Essex House, and he was transfixed. The room had fine elm-wood paneling and frescoed walls with pictures of nymphs and satyrs in woodland scenes. She was laughing and her fair hair fell back across the soft skin of her nape and shoulder blades. Her neck was adorned by three strings of precious stones that looked to him like diamonds and rubies.

He was a married man and Catherine was to him the loveliest of God’s creations. And yet he could not take his eyes off this fair woman.

Slyguff walked a step ahead of him, his hand gripped on the hilt of a dagger that was thrust in the belt buckled tight about his narrow, wiry waist.

Only at the last moment, as they came near, did Shakespeare avert his gaze from the woman and see that she was with Charlie McGunn, deep in conversation.

The woman looked up with nonchalant curiosity at Shakespeare’s approach. Her eyes were black, like still, dark water. She raised an eyebrow questioningly. McGunn turned to him, too, and a grin broke across his fleshy, bald face. “Ah, Mr. Shakespeare, I believe you have seen sense. Welcome to the fold.”

“Thank you.”

“I hope you will introduce us, Mr. McGunn,” the woman said.

“My apologies, Lady Rich. This is Mr. Shakespeare. Mr. John Shakespeare.”

Shakespeare bowed. “My lady.” Of course, he had seen her portrait. Penelope Rich, sister of the Earl of Essex, was said to be the most beautiful woman at court, if not in the whole of England. It was an assessment that Shakespeare could not dispute.

“Mr. Shakespeare,” she said, “you must be brother to the other Mr. Shakespeare, the Earl of Southampton’s poet, for I can see that there is a little family likeness in your eyes and brow, though you are taller.”

“Indeed, my lady. And I am a little older, too.”

McGunn clasped his arm around Shakespeare’s shoulders. Too tight for friendship. Shakespeare winced at the memory of his viselike hand taking him by the throat. “Mr. Shakespeare has agreed to join our great enterprise of all the talents, Lady Penelope. He is to seek out and find the mysterious lost colonist, if one such really exists.”

“Oh, I am sure she exists, Mr. McGunn. It is an intriguing tale. Do find her, Mr. Shakespeare. I should so like to hear what she has to say for herself, about the perils she has endured in the New World and how she came to make her crossing of the ocean
home to England. It will be the talk of the court. And, of course, it is certain to discomfit Ralegh, which will be most amusing.”

“I will do my utmost.”

She smiled the sweetest smile he had ever seen. “And I want you here tomorrow evening for the summer revels. Do say you will come.”

“Well, my lady …” He thought of Catherine, back home, turning from him, not even admitting him to her presence. How long was it since he had seen her smile at him like that?

McGunn’s grip about his shoulders tightened. “He’ll be there, Lady Rich. I’ll vouch for him.”

“That will be wonderful. I believe you were an intelligencer for Mr. Secretary Walsingham and saved Drake from some Spanish hellhound. I want to hear all about it from your own lips, Mr. Shakespeare. But for the moment, I am afraid I have to leave you.” She reached out and touched his face with the fingertips of her gloved right hand. “The She-wolf summons me and I must obey …”

He watched her move away from him along the hall. She wore a dress of gold and deep burgundy, almost brown in its intensity, with full embroidered sleeves and a sharply pointed bodice. From behind she seemed to glide, like a slender royal craft upon the Thames.

McGunn loosened his grip, then slapped him playfully on both sides of his face. It stung. “Watch yourself, Shakespeare. You’re a married man and she’s a married woman, and no good can come of it.”

“You do Lady Rich a disservice.”

McGunn laughed aloud. “But then, you don’t know the Devereux women, do you? It’s not for nothing that she calls her mother the She-wolf.”

“I heard it was Her Majesty the Queen that gave her the name.”

“Yes, but it was the She-wolf herself who earned it. Except that
she hunts and eats men, not lambs in the field. And her daughters are no different.”

“I am astonished at your temerity, Mr. McGunn, to speak of the Earl of Essex’s mother and sisters so.”

“Would you have me kiss their feet?”

Who exactly was McGunn that he could display such disrespect and familiarity to Essex himself and to the ladies of his house? Shakespeare wondered. And how would the lady Lettice take it if she heard this man and her own daughter refer to her as the “She-wolf”?

McGunn opened a purse of soft leather and took out coins, which he handed to Shakespeare. “Here, fifteen marks in gold. Now, come with me. I run things for Essex and I have something to show you.”

Shakespeare took the coins, though he felt unclean in doing so. “Are you his steward? His factor?”