License to Quill (31 page)

A disquieting silence fell over the undercroft, and it was followed by more drinking.

“Did you share my name with them?”

Fawkes and Catesby looked at the bard with worry on their faces. “I am afraid so,” replied the former.

This time, Shakespeare was not feigning fear as he rubbed his face. “I think I'll have a beer,” he said, helping himself to a pint.

“So, what are we going to do?” asked the swordsman. “Are we just going to wait here until autumn?”

After a pause, Fawkes decided: “We have to meet with the witches again.”

“What? Never!”

Guy Fawkes glared at Percy. “You want to kill them all? This just might be your chance!”

“Guido, they have an army,” said Catesby.

“We don't know that,” Fawkes realized. “They only told me they have an army, but I have never seen it.”

“What about those brutes they had with them during their ceremony?” Wintour asked.

“A couple of country bumpkins with paint is no army,” Fawkes scoffed. “We have twenty barrels of gunpowder and the best swordsman in England.” The conspirator's eyes flashed to his leader. “Let us go back into Warwickshire. We will meet with the sisters and find out precisely what has happened. If the cunning folk tricked us, then I say we treat them to gunfire. Let us not leave the woods until every last one of the she-beasts is dead.”

“Hear, hear!” Jack Wright and Tom Wintour cheered. Percy was a trifle jealous, but nevertheless entered his vote of confidence with more drinking.

Fawkes smiled and then looked to Shakespeare. The bard was a mix of emotions, and he was having trouble masking them all. “I should probably go back to my writing now.”

Thomas Percy shook his head. “Oh, no you don't!”

“Brother,” Catesby begged, “as I said, we need you now more than ever! Will you fight with us?”

The bard shook his head with indecision. “I do not know. When?”

The leader looked his men over. “My coachman is waiting at the Duck and Drake as we speak. I say we drink some more and then ride out!”

The slobbering crowd cheered in their subterranean parliament.

Shakespeare could scarcely believe what he was witnessing. He thought W was being fanciful when he requested that the cunning folk be destroyed, but now the conspirators were electing to attempt just that. The two forces would meet each other and destroy each other. And for that reason, “I cannot do it,” the playwright said.

The conspirators' smiles faded as they looked to Shakespeare.

“I am a writer, not a warrior,” he sighed. “If I were to ride out with you, I would only be an impediment on the battlefield.”

“Oh, come now,” Catesby chuckled. “We need all the men we can get. Show some strength!”

“Please. This is not what I agreed to. I am only here to write your play.”

“What's the matter, playwright?” Percy heckled. “Are you afraid of lifting something heavier than a feather?”

The bard clenched his jaw and wrestled with a reply. Fortunately, he did not need one. Jack Wright had noticed that Shakespeare was not wearing his sword. “The playwright's right,” he decided. “He would only get in my way.” He then leaned over and asked: “That lovely rapier you carry. Where is it?”

“I left it at home,” Shakespeare said, and then swallowed. “Why do you ask?”

The swaying swordsman leered at the playwright. “You've never even used it, have you?”

Shakespeare did not need to oversell his response. His answer was simple because it was also honest: “No.”

The swordsman slinked back and returned to his beverage. “He'd be useless.”

Catesby nodded. “Very well, then. Will, go back to your writing. And please pray for us every opportunity you have.”

The bard bowed his head. “I will.”

“Thank you. Go in peace, brother.”

Catesby hunkered down with his men while Shakespeare quit the darkened stage.

*   *   *

“Master Bacon?”

The scientist looked up from the cadaver he was dissecting. “What is it?”

The Ravenmaster presented Bacon a small, rolled-up piece of parchment. “This just arrived.”

The scientist pulled his arms out of the prisoner and unfurled the note with red, wet hands.

Fiue h
a
ue I
sl
ai
n
e t
o
d
a
i
e
in
st
e
ad o
f
h
i
me,

A h
o
r
s
e,
a
ho
rs
e, m
y
ki
n
gdom
e
for
a
h
or
s
e.

ASTON. SILVER ST.

Bacon returned the parchment stained with fingerprints. “Send him over immediately.” The Ravenmaster bowed, and the scientist turned to the surgeon beside him. “I am afraid that you must ride off as well.”

Knowing what this meant, the silent surgeon's bloodied hands clenched into fists.

 

Chapter XXXII

The Slap

“Let me do the talking.”

“
We
will do the talking.”

“Pish! You're the two who got us into this mess!”

“Mind your tongue, Thomas. Your empty threats are paper-thin.”

“Fie upon thee!”

“Fie
thyself!
”

“Tush, tush, tush!”

“Peace, brothers! Stop this madness!”

“We need to kill them.”

“
I
will kill them!”

“How much longer must we wait?”

The conspirators had been arguing in the darkened Arden for almost an hour. It was a misty, moonlit evening, and Shakespeare had plenty of foliage to hide behind as he monitored from afar. The bard counted ten men in his spyglass: the nine from earlier in Westminster, and John Grant, a veteran of the Essex Rebellion. The conspirators picked him up at Norbrook on their way through Warwickshire. Grant was Catesby's supply man for the English Midlands, and thanks to him, every one of the conspirators was brandishing weapons.

The bard was kneeling, Aston was quiet, and a stately raven was keeping watch above.

There were no cunning folk to be seen.

Then, across the glade, the conspirators saw a spark.

Robert Catesby raised his torch. “Lo!” he hollered. The men behind him tightened their weapons.

A ring of fire surrounded the forest clearing, wreathing the conspirators in flame.

“Dear lord,” Catesby muttered. The cunning folk had been present the whole time.

As before, the two women had a thick wall of woad warriors behind them.

Guy Fawkes and Robert Catesby looked at each other, nodded, and then stepped across the glade. “Sisters,” began the former. “Something dreadful has happened. We beseech—”

The elder woman ignored the man and threw a torch onto a woodpile. The timber erupted into a towering fire, forcing Catesby and Fawkes to step back. As the elder stared at the conspirators, the younger woman placed three skulls onto the stone slab by the blaze. Each skull had a candle flickering inside of it.

“What have you done?” Guy Fawkes gasped.

“A deed without a name,” replied the elder.

The conspirators were speechless. The skulls were from the Jesuits.

Percy stomped forward and lobbed a throwing ax at the witches. “BLOODY HEATHENS!”

Catesby spun around. “Brother! No!”

The weapon flew straight toward the women. Without blinking or flinching, the elder caught the ax and tossed it aside, shattering all three skulls with it.

Her eyes were alight with resentment. “Twice the brinded Cat hath mew'd. Thrice and none the Hedge-Pigge whin'd.”

“'Tis not time,” the younger taunted. “'Tis not time.”

Catesby swallowed. “Ladies, Alessandro de' Medici is dead. Every one of our foreign allies has deserted us.”

There was no response.

“You have cursed us!” Fawkes entered. “You betrayed us with every one of our wishes! Explain yourselves!”

“The foul she-beasts…” Percy grumbled to Jack Wright.

“Faire is foule, and foule is faire…”

“Hover through the fog and filthy air,” the cunning folk replied.

The conspirators froze in confusion. “What is that supposed to mean?” asked Catesby. “You expect us to weather this? You have us at your mercy! We have—”

But with those words, Guy Fawkes's patience had run out. He sheathed his weapon and marched forward.

“Guido! What are you—”

“Let me handle this,” he shot to Catesby. The conspirators watched in shock as their lone cohort tromped up to the women. Their painted bodyguards stepped forward, but the elder woman kept them back.

Fawkes looked straight into the woman's wizened eyes. “No more riddles, mistress. Tell me clearly: Why is Alessandro de' Medici dead?” The conspirator was prepared to attack if he did not get a satisfactory response.

Instead, the woman blinked. She lifted her face to his, and her lips parted.

Surprised, Guido moved in closer so he could hear her whispers. Silhouetted by the crackling fire, their exchange was obscured to everyone, including Shakespeare.

When the whispers ended, every muscle on Guy Fawkes's face cringed. He drew back and looked into the woman's emerald eyes. A smile curled across her lips.

With all his strength, Guy Fawkes slapped the woman across her face.

“RUN!” he screamed.

 

Chapter XXXIII

Bewitched

With that clap, the cunning warriors came screaming across the glade while an even larger horde of painted men charged through the circle's flames. The conspirators, realizing they were outnumbered, cowered backwards in fear, but Fawkes sprinted past his cohorts and leaped through their burning barrier. Seeing this, Catesby led his remaining men through the fire and to their carriages. The conspirators whipped their horses and fled the Arden, many of them leaving their weapons behind.

The playwright sheathed his spyglass. It was time for him to fly as well.

Shakespeare had lowered his lenses the instant he realized what the cunning folk were up to. The women used their wreath of flame to mask a larger army hidden in the woods around them. It created the illusion that their warriors were being summoned from the fires when they were simply lining up behind them. It was theater; not magic. The conspirators were being deceived. The only question that kept the bard from fleeing earlier was why the warriors did not surround the entire circle. By leaving their only opening by the carriages, it was almost like they wanted the conspirators to escape.

However, the bard had no time to search for answers. Warriors were converging on the clearing from all directions, and Shakespeare needed to flee before any of them spotted him.

But then, the playwright's raven came screeching down just before he untied Aston. The bard followed the bird over his shoulder to see it claw at two painted men sneaking behind him. Shocked, Shakespeare drew his rapier and cut Aston free from his binds. However, as he stepped into his saddle, a sword flashed in front of him and sliced off his stirrup. The bard came crashing down and landed on his face.

The playwright rolled over to find a hideous figure looming over him.

“Wehlsgchy, wehlsgchy!”
the drooling, misshapen Hobgoblin garbled and hissed.

Although the lower half of his face was masked behind a metal jaw, there was no doubt in Shakespeare's mind that the madman was smiling.

*   *   *

The ring of flame had died out by the time Shakespeare was forced inside the circle. With the conspirators gone, the bard was all alone against the cunning folk. Their warriors stripped Shakespeare of his weapons and then brought him to their mistresses.

The women appeared somewhat different in person than the bard had observed through his lenses. Instead of standing tall and statuesque, the elder was sitting on their stone slab while the younger examined her bruised face. The injury was not serious, but the elder already requested that her men bring her some arnica, parsley, and cold cream to make a balm.

The bard was thrown before them, and the two women turned their heads.

“Ladies.” He bowed.

The painted men grumbled something to the women, and the mistresses narrowed their eyes at the playwright.

Shakespeare shrugged apologetically, but was then interrupted by two ravens that came swooping down to defend him. Unfortunately, the bard was too outnumbered for the ravens to help him escape, but he nevertheless smiled as the bloodied birds went to work on the painted warriors. However, the women were prepared for this, and the elder jumped back onto her feet. She waved over an older man holding a hollowed-out wooden log. The man threw the cylinder into the bonfire, and as it ignited, it billowed a brightly colored smoke over the glade. The fume had a noxious smell that assaulted the ravens, forcing them to retreat. One of the black birds fell down, dead, while the other fled from the clearing.

The abandoned bard sighed with sadness. “How cunning of you,” he commented.

The women were not amused. “What are you doing here?” the elder asked in a Gaelic accent as she sat down.

The playwright raised an eyebrow. “Do you normally speak like that?”

“Not normally.” She then chatted something to the younger woman in Old Brythonic, an ancient tongue that the bard's trained ear could not recognize. “I ask again,” she continued, “why are you here?”