Holy Spy (57 page)

‘He did dangerous work. As did Robin Poley. I truly believe Babington fell in love with him.’

Shakespeare finished his brandy.
Anthony Babington.
A vain fool who had brought fourteen young men to their doom. Shakespeare could no longer shut out the knowledge of what would happen on the morrow. He wanted to get away from this room for he could not share in Walsingham’s rejoicing. He felt sick; he could smell the blood in nostrils. In the morning, the first seven men would die in the most horrible way imaginable. And the day after that, seven more. A hard price to pay for snaring the Queen of Scots.

He rose from the chair. ‘Sir Francis, I fear I am not yet well. If it please you, I will return to London.’

‘As you will, John. I shall have my best rowers take you.’

Shakespeare bowed to his master.

‘And John, thank you.’

Shakespeare could not suppress a shudder as he stepped through the gate into the Tower. This time he was a free man, but he knew that his mind would never free itself of the dark and fiery vault beneath the White Tower where the living body of Father Ballard, a man of flesh and blood, had been fixed in iron, crouched in agony, enclosed in the Scavenger’s Daughter.

A man in a machine made with no purpose other than pain. Such black dreams did not disappear with the dawning day.

John Savage was praying in his cell. He had a makeshift cross clasped in his hands and was muttering,
In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum
. Commending his spirit to God, his last hope of salvation.

Shakespeare stood in the doorway and allowed him to complete his supplications. Finally Savage said
Amen
, crossed himself and turned towards Shakespeare. He peered closely as though struggling to see who his visitor might be.

‘Forgive me, Goodfellow, I intrude.’

‘Ah, John Shakespeare. You are more welcome than any man. We are friends, are we not? I will die your friend.’

‘You honour me, Goodfellow.’

‘And you have my horse, I trust?’

‘I have indeed retrieved it. I thank you for it. A good beast.’

‘Take it in repayment of the two pounds and an angel you gave me.’

‘I told you, that was a gift.’

‘Then so is the horse.’

‘But the horse is not why I am here. I came because I had to say farewell, though you would be within your rights to club me to the ground.’

‘You are a fine man, though wrong-headed.’

‘I did what I had to do, Goodfellow.’

Savage climbed to his feet. He still looked more the soldier than the scholar. ‘And I would have done the same to you, so I cannot hold your actions against you. We were two soldiers on opposing sides of the field. Kill or be killed. In all my life I never expected quarter nor gave it.’

Shakespeare’s injuries had, at least, given him an excuse not to appear in court and testify against Savage; not that his testimony was needed, for Savage had confessed all, as had the other conspirators. ‘I take no pleasure in winning this battle.’

Savage smiled. ‘My death is nothing. In truth I welcome it, for my eyesight fails me by the day. I pray that God will restore my vision so that I might see the Lamb in all His glory.’

A pair of spectacles would have done that, thought Shakespeare, but he did not say it. ‘Be honest with me, Goodfellow. With your eyesight, you would never have spotted the Queen, let alone have had the aim to shoot her.’

‘God would have guided me, had He wanted it. It seems He did not . . .’

‘You still have a few hours. Can I have anything brought to you?’ He held up a small flagon. ‘Perhaps some aqua vitae.’

‘I crave no food but I will drink with you. It may ease my passing. Will you be at St Giles Fields in the morning?’

‘Do you want me there?’

‘No.’ He shook his head firmly. ‘Remember me as a man, not meat. And grant me one boon if it is in your power: do not allow any of your pseudo-ministers near me – either here or at the scaffold. Their babbling offends me more than the rack or butcher’s knife.’

‘I will do what I can.’

‘And now, the aqua vitae, if you will . . . let us see if we can get roaring drunk together one last time.’

Chapter 48

The mud-covered boys poked their fingers into the eye sockets, made faces of disgust and laughed. One of them caught Shakespeare’s gaze, stuck out his tongue, then graced him with a toothless grin. ‘Here, mister, want to know what happened to their bollocks and glazers? Give us a penny and I’ll tell you.’

Shakespeare ignored the boys, who were eight or nine years old. Joshua Peace stepped forward to examine the two bodies, which were naked and bound back to back against a tall fence-pole that had been hammered deep into the mud at the water’s edge.

‘Come on, mister. Only a penny. Nothing to a gent like you. They’ve both had their balls and their glazers cut away. You must want to know what happened to them.’ They giggled, then one of the boys threw a fistful of the dark clay mud at the other one and got the same returned to him.

Peace, meanwhile, was examining the dead face of Sir Robert Huckerbee.

‘As you will, mister, a halfpenny.’ The taller of the two boys took a breather from his mudfight, determined to make some profit from the corpses. ‘Tell you what, I’ll give you what I know, then you, being a gent, will give me the money. So here goes: their bollocks were shoved down each other’s throats and their glazers were poked up each other’s arses.’

Peace turned away from his examination. ‘How do you know?’ he asked.

‘Because the men as put them here told us. And they told us to stay with them.’

‘When was this?’

‘Last night, an hour before high tide. We was told to watch until the water covered their heads and drowned them, and so we did. Gave us these for our trouble.’ The boys both drew bollock-daggers from their belts. ‘Said we could join their crew when we’re growed.’

‘Why did you not fetch help?’

‘Help? What help? Can’t sew back glazers and bollocks, mister.’

‘They might have been saved nonetheless.’

‘Saved? Why would they want to be saved without eyes or balls? Can’t see, can’t swive. What’s left?’

Peace turned away from the boys. ‘Are you certain of their identities, John?’

‘Yes. This one’s Huckerbee. The other is Arthur Giltspur.’ He gazed on their disfigured torsos and faces. So alike; conspirators in death, as in life.

‘I fear I have disturbed your day bringing you here, but I needed someone with legal authority. The coroner, sheriff, justice – all are gone to St Giles in the Fields.’

Shakespeare managed a smile. ‘It is nothing. To tell you the truth, Joshua, I would rather be here looking upon this obscenity than at St Giles. If I am the one man in London not there, then I am glad of my absence.’ Seven men were to die this day: Savage, Babington, Ballard, Barnwell, Dunn, Salisbury, Tichbourne.

Seven more would follow tomorrow: Abingdon, Tilney, Bellamy, Charnock, Jones, Gage, Travers. Some had been prime movers, some had played little part in the plot. The penalty was the same for all.

Walsingham had confided in Shakespeare that the Queen had ordered that some extra torment should be added to the punishment ‘for more terror’ so as to deter other would-be assassins and plotters.

For more terror.
As if the prospect of hanging, drawing and quartering were not terror enough for any man. Yet Shakespeare knew exactly what those three cruel words meant. They meant that the men would be cut down almost immediately from the noose so that they were still alive and fully conscious for the godly butchery. The execution would be deliberately prolonged.

First the prick and balls would be sliced off, then held before the victim’s eyes and tossed into the cauldron. Next the belly would be opened and the bowels drawn forth. Again, these would be shown to the condemned man before being dispatched to the pot. Finally the ripping out of the heart and merciful death. And in the aftermath, the quartering and decapitation, the head held up to the cheering crowd, the proper end of a traitor.

For more terror.

Which was worse, the punishment meted out by a criminal to two men who had stolen from him or the punishment ordered by the state for those deemed traitors?

Shakespeare took one last look at the corpses of Huckerbee and Giltspur. ‘I will leave this matter to you, Joshua. I will send Boltfoot to assist you in removing the bodies. Deal with them as you wish. The sheriff may have other thoughts, but I doubt he will wish to take the matter further.’ He was turning away when one of the mudlarks thrust his hand in his face, holding his new bollock-dagger menacingly with the other hand. ‘Come on, mister, a penny – or we’ll pelt you with sludge.’

Shakespeare pulled a penny from his purse and spun it in the air so that it fell to the muddy ground near the boys’ feet. They fell to fighting over it. Then the smaller one stood up, bit the

coin, held it in the air to goad his friend, and began to run.

‘Come on, I’ll race you to Giles Fields!’

‘Hey, half that’s mine.’

‘Only if you get it off me. But I’ll buy you a beer. Come on

– I want a place by the scaffold!’

The streets from the Tower to St Giles in the Fields were thronged. If you couldn’t get a place near the scaffold, the next best thing was a position along the route watching the first seven Babington plotters being drawn to their death. They wanted to see the priest Ballard, said to be a Jesuit with a heart as black as his robe; they wanted to see the proud young gentleman Anthony Babington brought low by overweening ambition and arrogance; they wanted to see John Savage, the soldier who had sworn to kill the Queen.

Shakespeare threaded his way through the crowd back to Seething Lane and called for Boltfoot. Jane came scurrying from the kitchen.

‘Where is Boltfoot, Jane?’

‘He has gone out, master.’

Shakespeare frowned. ‘The executions?’ Surely Boltfoot did not wish to join the bloodthirsty throng at St Giles in the Fields.

She shook her head with vigour. ‘No, master. Not that.’

‘Where then?’

‘I believe . . . sir, must I say?’

‘Jane, you cannot keep secrets from me. I need Boltfoot – and I need him now.’

‘Oh, master, I believe he has gone east of London again.’

Shakespeare rolled his eyes to the heavens. ‘In God’s name, why?’

Jane hesitated, then said, ‘I am not certain.’

‘Jane?’

‘Then I must say it. He has gone to see Mistress Cane.’

Bathsheba Cane? The widow of the murderer? At first, Shakespeare was dumbfounded. ‘What? Why would he do that?’ Yet even as he asked the question he realised how foolish it must sound. There was only one reason Boltfoot would go there.

‘I believe he wished to thank her for returning his weapons.’

‘Indeed? His weapons . . .’ Shakespeare shook his head slowly. ‘And you believe that, do you, Jane?’

She flushed, as though caught out in something shameful. ‘It did occur to me there might be another reason for his visit, sir.’

‘Well done, Jane.’ He noticed the distress in her eyes. ‘Forgive me, Jane – I did not wish to make jest at your expense.’

She performed a little curtsy. ‘It is nothing, master.’

‘I had better find one of the stablehands to help me.’

‘They have gone to Giles Fields.’