License to Quill (24 page)

The conspirators parted ways outside the Duck and Drake on a disagreeable day for good-byes, particularly for the weather-beaten playwright monitoring them in the rain. Shakespeare had been following Guy Fawkes and his cabal for nearly a month now, and both his patience and endurance were beginning to wane. His preoccupation turned to self-preservation, which was prudent considering the horror he had witnessed within the Arden. The bard had grim news to report back to London, and with so few ravens flying due to the storm, Shakespeare had no choice but to carry the message himself. Such a burden made the bard a ripe target for murder, which only added to the nightmares keeping him up at night. Not only did he have the conspirators and now the cunning folk to contend with, but the frequent flashes of lighting that haunted Shakespeare confirmed his worst fears: He too was being followed, and likely being watched at that very moment outside the Duck and Drake.

He was.

With his mission accomplished, the bard sheathed his spyglass and spurred Aston back to the city. He crossed Temple Bar and once more arrived at London Wall, where he presented his pass with Walsingham's seal to the familiar-looking guard at the Ludgate. As the bard awaited reentry, he noticed there were more soldiers outside the gate than the last time he passed through. He then glanced up at the column of crossbowmen looking down on him from the Wall. Shakespeare was feeling less than welcome and a lot more than exposed in the rain, especially since the only raven that he saw swooped down to cozy under his white cloak for warmth. The playwright stared ahead and exhaled, fretful that the added security was due to a deteriorating situation with the plague. Although the plague was still present in London, something even more sinister awaited Shakespeare on the opposite side of the Wall.

“I'm afraid you'll have to ride with us, horsemaster.”

The hooded playwright looked down at the guard with surprise. “For what reason?”

“Orders.” The watchman handed Shakespeare his pass and then a second letter bearing Thomas Walsingham's seal. As the bard examined the envelope, several soldiers surrounded him and Aston. The Ludgate remained shut.

“Where are we going?” Shakespeare asked while steadying his horse.

The watchmen shook his head. “We don't know.” He then pointed to the sealed letter, and the bard opened it.

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SEETHING LANE

W

Penny opened the portal to the cold and candlelit Seething Lane mansion that, at least from the outside, appeared to be vacant. Like Shakespeare, she too had been working for nearly a month without rest, and it showed. Her eyes were red, her face was pale, and her silvery hair less kempt than she usually wore it. Once she saw who had come knocking on her doors, however, her face brightened and her eyebrows rose in surprise.

“Lady Percy,” the bard greeted with an exhausted attempt at a smile.

Her lips parted.

Shakespeare moved in to kiss her, but Penny stopped him with her hand and slowly, almost mechanically, pushed him to an appropriate distance. “It's a plague year,” she reminded him, her right hand pressed against the playwright's left breast. After so many late nights at the mansion, she needed to make sure that she was not dreaming and that this visitor was not William Shakespeare's ghost.

“Of course.” The sodden playwright straightened himself. “I apologize.”

After feeling Shakespeare's heartbeat, Penny lifted her tired eyes and stared deeply into his.

“Are you all right, m'lady?” the playwright asked. “You look like you have just seen a ghost.”

With these words, Penny's eyes narrowed and a smile returned to her face. “Still so formal,” she teased.

“Yes. May I come in?”

“Well, that depends.” Once more, Penny blocked her open door with her body. “Would you mind explaining why you took so bloody long to report in? W thought you were dead.”

“I had a raven cut down,” Shakespeare sighed. “And the storm delayed me. Also, I think I'm being followed. May I please come inside?”

A slight smirk curled up the corner of Penny's lips. “Would you like me to walk you home when you're finished?”

“No,” he replied curtly, standing in the rain. “Please let me in.”

“Of course.”

Penny pulled Shakespeare in by his shirt and kissed his face while spinning backward and kicking the door closed behind her. Once the two finished their dance, the bard noticed something out of the corner of his eye: the dark, seemingly empty mansion was filled with royal guards. The men were armed in full regalia.

“What's going on here?” Shakespeare asked.

“You must be jesting,” Penny laughed somewhat uneasily as she escorted the playwright past the guards.

“I'm afraid I lost my appreciation for jesters along with my watch in the Arden.”

“Bacon will be disappointed,” the lady chided as she hung up Shakespeare's wet cloak to dry.

“My lady, please.” Shakespeare pulled Penny over by her arm and closed the door to her study. “Why are there royal guards here? Why the darkness? Why is the city under such tight security?”

All the playfulness on Penny's face disappeared. “Are you serious? You really don't know?”

“Know what? Is it the plague, or—did something happen while I was away?”

The lady secretary breathed heavily as the thunderstorm battered her windows. “I think you should see him now,” she replied nervously. Penny returned to her desk in a tizzy, leaving Shakespeare where he stood: beside W's heavily armored door.

“Should I knock first?” he asked.

“Just go in.” Penny dabbed a quill pen and then looked up from her desk. “Good luck, Will.”

Once more, the bard stepped into the spymaster's office. What he saw made him immediately regret entering without knocking.

Sir Thomas Walsingham, forty-four years old, was standing at his desk with a spent pipe in one hand and a large leaf of parchment in the other. His back was straight, his chest puffed, his clothes black save for the white ruff around his neck, and he had the stern look on his face of a man interrupted. And opposite him, seated, wearing a brown fur cape over a white doublet with matching stockings and shoes, sporting a short, goatlike beard, and staring back at Shakespeare with a thin face and sunken eyes, was the thirty-eight years old James I, king of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc.

In desperate need of a remedy, the bard bowed his head until the farthest retreat of his receding hairline was nearly touching the floor.

Seeing no chance of rescuing the situation, Walsingham turned to King James and asked: “Would Your Majesty mind if we continued this discussion later?” The king mulled this over, and then exited the room without saying a word. Thomas Walsingham bowed, and Shakespeare dutifully held the door open for the monarch as he left.

“Close the door,” Thomas ordered.

The bard complied, and W threw his parchment into the crackling fire behind him. “Where have you been, Will? We've been busy.”

“As have I, W. Believe me.”

“I never doubted it,” remarked Walsingham while refiling his pipe. “What's the news from Warwickshire?”

“Frightening,” Shakespeare answered in disbelief. “Wicked.”

“Of course it is. The news has been nothing but terrible all month.” The spymaster lit his tobacco with a rolled-up report.

“What happened?”

“You tell me your story, and I will follow with mine.” Walsingham pointed Shakespeare to the king's chair with his pipe.

The upholstered seat looked like a feather bed after hundreds of hours on horseback. However, the bard turned his back on it. “W, I need to know—”

“No, you don't,” Walsingham interrupted. “Not yet. This is not the Globe, master bard. I give the directions here, and you act out the modest roles you are given. It is a lovely alternative to anarchy.” The spymaster took a few puffs from his pipe. “Don't you agree?”

The levelheaded Walsingham reined in the playwright's anxiety. With his better senses restored, Shakespeare nodded with gratitude, and W returned the gesture. The two men sat, and within the warm office, the bard felt something akin to comfort for the first time in weeks.

Sensing this, the spymaster tested, “May I offer you something?”

Shakespeare followed Walsingham's finger to a pewter pitcher surrounded with fruit on a small table. “I am a bit thirsty,” the playwright acknowledged.

Shakespeare reached for a vessel, but Thomas stopped him. The spy-chief rose from his chair and poured a large goblet of wine. After handing Shakespeare the chalice, Walsingham walked back to his desk while opening his pocket watch to a hidden mirror. Behind him, he saw the bard drop a small clump of
terra sigillata
into his claret. Satisfied, W closed his timepiece and returned to his seat. “I see you're looking out for yourself,” he commended.

“Someone has to,” Shakespeare responded, taking the hint. “Someone could have been trying to poison the king just now. Or perhaps the king had planned to poison you.”

“That type of thinking will save your life one day,” said Thomas. “So, what wicked news this way comes out of Warwickshire?” Walsingham returned to his pipe while Shakespeare gulped down his wine.

“Guy Fawkes has recruited cunning folk to aid the conspirators. It looks like this was their plan from the beginning. It is the reason they insisted that I include witches in their play.”

“How is that coming, by the way?” Thomas asked with a genuine interest.

“I have my subject. The play will cover Macbeth.”

Walsingham raised his eyebrows, intrigued by the choice. “Well, that settles that. The conspirators got what they wanted: your very first Scottish play. Congratulations.”

The playwright smirked. “So it is, I have only begun to write it. Also, I think the conspirators want it performed when Parliament reconvenes.”

“In October?”

The bard nodded.

Walsingham picked up a quill pen and scrawled “October” onto a parchment. He then scratched a long line through the word. “And what of their cunning folk allies?” he asked as he set down his feather.

Shakespeare's voice deepened. “I spied on their ceremony at the Forest of Arden. There were sacrifices; human sacrifices. I watched as three Jesuit priests had their throats cut open.”

“Did you know who they were?”

The bard shook his head. “No, but the conspirators recognized them. Through a … Father Garnet, I believe.”

W picked up his pen and wrote “Henry Garnet,” the Jesuit Superior for England. He then crossed a line through that name as well. “And why were they killed?”

“It seemed to be part of the ceremony. Robert Catesby gave the cunning folk three requests: that England be severed from her overseas allies, that Alessandro de' Medici become the next pope, and that the conspirators successfully eradicate the Reformation from England.”

The stable spymaster's pipe trembled with the sound of thunder outside. Seeing this, he removed the pipe from his mouth while the playwright continued.

“After each request, the cunning folk slit one of the priests' throats over a cauldron. They then performed…” The bard struggled. “Some sort of a spell unlike anything I have ever thought possible. There were no wands, no incantations; only ingredients. They used a skull, blood, and powder to make their cauldron bubble black ash. And then I saw it spout large, burning limbs!”

“Calm down,” Walsingham entered. “Pour yourself some more wine.”

“W,” Shakespeare replied with a steady voice and level head, “I am not giving in to fancy right now. I know what I saw, and it was no illusion: their cauldron erupted branches as wide as my waist, and as red as hot coals. And I saw these limbs writhe across the ground like fiery snakes.”

Walsingham's brow furrowed. “Could this have been alchemy?”

“I don't know what to believe,” the bard sighed while rubbing his forehead. “I was always skeptical of witchcraft, black magic, the dark arts. If you spend enough time on stage, you learn how to see through anyone's act. In all my years, W, I have never seen a display such as this. Whatever these women conjured, it looked like it was not of this earth.”

The spymaster's eyes narrowed at one particular word. “Tell me more about these women.”

The bard drew a breath. “Well, there were two of them. An elder performed the ceremony while a younger woman assisted. They were accompanied by a group of men in blue paint. The men never spoke, and they followed orders without being asked.”

“Blue paint?”

“Yes. Intricate markings, like chain mail on their flesh.”

Walsingham paused. “Were they Celts?”

Shakespeare shrugged. “Anybody can cover themselves in blue paint.”

The spy-chief nodded, accepting this. “How old would you say these women were?”

“Not that old. The elder appeared about as old as us. Forty? Perhaps older? The other woman was closer to my daughters' ages. I'd say she was no older than thirty.”

Another pause. “Was she blond?” Walsingham whispered. “And the elder witch brown of hair?”

The bard's mouth gaped. “How did you know that?”