Martyr (33 page)

He ate heartily. The beef was sliced thin and served with a well-seasoned gravy, roasted parsnips, peas, and a thick wedge of black bread. When he had finished, he asked for his room. As he stepped out from the taproom with the landlady, he was aware of several pairs of eyes focused on the back of his head, but he cared not a jot. He was so weary he could have fallen to the ground and slept in the sawdust. The room was, as the landlady had said, nothing more than the parlor, but a straw mattress and coarse blankets had been laid out for him on the floor. He asked to be woken before first light, and climbed, fully dressed, beneath the blankets. Within a minute or two he was asleep. A sleep so profound that when the latch to his door was lifted half an hour later, he heard not a thing and slept on contented, dreaming of the one he had left at home.

Chapter 38

D
RAKE’S SHIP SAILED WITH THE TIDE AT FOUR IN THE
morning. The wind would carry them quickly westward along the widening strait.

When dawn arrived, Boltfoot peered through the small portage outside Drake’s cabin in the stern of the vessel. He had been awake all night, with only the light of a candle and years of wakeful watching to support him. The Sussex shoreline, misty and blue-gray, raced past on the starboard side. A fresh and bracing breeze whitened the tops of the coal-gray Channel waves. The great ship lay over sharply and, pushed along by the blustering weight of full sail, fair flew along. They would be at Plymouth, he reckoned, in a day or a little more.

He looked down at Diego, asleep on the wood decking close by. They had braved many adventures together and here they were again, aboard ship, where Boltfoot had vowed never to set foot again. He laughed to himself. The truth was, he was enjoying it. One could never totally escape the sea, and certainly one could never be free of Sir Francis Drake. Once under his spell, a sailor was the Vice Admiral’s man forever. And Diego was a good man to share time with. He had a ready laugh at all the vicissitudes the world could throw at him, and there had been many. He had lost so much: his home somewhere in Africa, his family and friends, his freedom. Yet he had adjusted to this extraordinary new life in the manner of one born to it, for he told these stories of his past without a hint of rancor.

Captain Stanley appeared, fully dressed and ready for the day. “Mr. Cooper, get yourself along to the galley for some breakfast. I will sit out the rest of your watch here.”

“That won’t be necessary, Captain Stanley. I will eat when Diego awakes.”

“Come, come, Mr. Cooper. You have been diligent enough. We are safely at sea now. What possible threat could there be to the Vice Admiral out here?”

“My orders are clear, sir. I am to guard Sir Francis at all times.”

“As you wish, Mr. Cooper, but Sir Francis will not thank you for your nursery-maid care. He will do nothing but damn you for it and call you a poltroon.”

“He has called me worse many times, Captain. It is like water off the shrouds.”

Stanley nodded briskly. “Good day then, Mr. Cooper.” He turned on his heel and was gone along a gangway and up the companion ladder to the quarterdeck.

Diego stirred. “Did I hear someone say ‘breakfast,’ Boltfoot?”

“You wait your turn. I’m as hungry as a parson’s dog.”

The door to Drake’s cabin opened an inch or two. Elizabeth poked her face out. Clearly, she was still in her nightgown. She smiled winningly. “Boltfoot, Diego, would one of you go and bring me some breakfast? The sea air has brought on something of an appetite, I am afraid. And for Sir Francis, too, for I am sure he will wake soon.”

“Of course, my lady.”

Boltfoot looked at Diego. Diego looked at Boltfoot. “All right,” Diego said at last. “You go. But bring me some bread, thick spread with butter and strawberry jam.”

Inside the cabin, Elizabeth returned to her narrow cot. Her husband was in a hammock stretched between the larboard and stern bulwarks. The hammock swung with the graceful rise and pitch of the ship as she hit wave after wave on her easy, smoking flow westward. Drake snored like a man at peace with himself. Elizabeth’s bed was warm and she curled into it, looking up at Francis. He was twice her age. He had circled the world yet there was so much he
didn’t
know. In particular, he seemed to know nothing about women and he had no children, either with her or by his late first wife, Mary. Elizabeth was beginning to doubt whether he would ever get her with child. She listened to the aching creak of the English timbers. Sometimes she wondered whether it might not be the prospect of women at home that kept her husband so long at sea.

R
ICHARD YOUNG
, magistrate of London, knocked softly at the door of John Shakespeare’s timber-frame dwelling in Seething Lane. He feared that a heavy pummeling at the door would drive those inside into hiding, which was just what he did not want. He could not afford to tear this place apart as they had done to Lady Tanahill’s property. Topcliffe had overstepped the mark on that occasion and angered the Queen. It could not be repeated so soon, and certainly not at the home of one of Walsingham’s chief officers.

It was early evening, just after dusk. The street was quiet and dark. That was the way he had planned it. No fuss. Simply pick up the woman and Thomas Woode’s children and cart them off. Mr. Secretary, in his great mansion a mere thirty yards down the lane, would be none the wiser and nor would anyone else. Until Mr. Topcliffe was ready to bring the matter of the woman’s treason to court.

Jane answered the door. She was in her nightgown, ready for bed. It had been a long day of worry since being woken by Harry Slide early in the morning, followed by the arrival of the message from Master Shakespeare to Catherine saying he was riding west and did not know when he would be back. Jane looked at Young and his companion in dismay. Everyone in London knew Richard Young. It was said Topcliffe had learned every manner of wickedness he could from the magistrate and then added his own. These men were devilish devices cast from the same dark foundry.

Without awaiting invitation, Young and his assistant pushed past her and strode into the hall of the house. They looked about them. “Who are you?” Young demanded. “Are you Catherine Marvell?”

Jane shook her head with vigor. She knew she was trembling but could not control it. “I am Jane. Jane Cawston, sir. I am Master Shakespeare’s maidservant.”

“I am Justice Young and I have an arrest warrant. Bring me Catherine Marvell. Produce her at once, Mistress Cawston.”

Jane could scarcely think; all she could find to say was, “I cannot, sir.”

“Cannot! What do you mean you cannot?” Young was raising his voice now. Jane prayed that Catherine would hear it from her room and find some sort of hiding place.

“She is not here, sir. She was here but she has gone home to York, whence she came and where her family still resides.”

“You lie, mistress.”

“No, sir. Look about you at your will.”

Young glanced at the pursuivant accompanying him. He was short, with a distended belly. The man’s face was a mask of bland unpleasantness. Young looked back at Jane. “What of the two children?”

“Both are asleep, sir. They have been entrusted to my care.”

“Well, fetch them. They must come into custody with us. They are a danger to the commonwealth and must be kept under close restraint.”

Jane’s mouth fell open in horror. Without thinking, she moved directly in front of Young. What fear she had was gone like smoke. She was still trembling, but with rage now, not fear. “They are but four and six years old. They are a danger to no one and you will not take them.”

Young tried to brush her out of the way. “Stand aside, woman. I
will
take them. The Lord Treasurer himself, Lord Burghley, does approve of taking Papist spawn away for proper education, to save them the contamination of wicked priests.”

Jane was healthy and strong from hard work and she pushed herself back in front of Young. She raised her own voice now. She had always been able to make herself heard. Now, she knew, she had to make as much disturbance as she could: anything to delay Young and alert Catherine. “You will have to kill me first. How will that look when Mr. Secretary and the Queen hear of it? Or will you fabricate treason against me, too? Maybe you will even hang, draw, and quarter a girl of four years for high treason. Show me your warrant!”

Agitated, the magistrate drew his sword. He was a man in his late forties, much lined by weather and cruelty, but without the raw physical strength that his confederate Topcliffe possessed. He was a spindly man with a stoop. It was easy for him to inflict torment on men—or women—when they were presented to him in chains. This was another matter. He was painfully aware of the need for subtlety in this arrest, and he lacked Topcliffe’s confidence. This serving wench was making things difficult, if not impossible. He looked again at the pursuivant for some kind of support, but there was nothing there. The man would do what he was told, but would not engender any ideas or course of action and might very well balk at the thought of carrying off screaming children.

“Mistress Cawston, I will give you one last warning. You will produce the children now or I will return in force and remove not only the children but you as well. Do you understand? I have the power not only of arrest, but arraignment, and you will be consigned to hard labor in Bridewell. I will see to it.”

“Well, sir, take me … if you can. But you will
not
take those children while I draw breath.”

Justice Young rose to his full beanpole height. Jane could see that he was shaking with anger, just as she was. But she knew now that he could not kill her. Not here, not this day. This was political and he was afraid of the consequences of the arrest not proceeding smoothly. He was afraid, perhaps, of Master Shakespeare or Mr. Secretary.

“Damn you to hell!” he exclaimed, quivering with rage. “I shall see that you suffer for this.”

“And I shall ensure that Mr. Secretary, our neighbor, knows what you are about, sir.” Even as she said it, she knew it was an idle threat; she could not possibly call on the Queen’s Principal Secretary and lay this tale before him; but Justice Young did not know that.

Young turned and marched to the door, swinging his sword, slashing a tapestry, knocking a good flower vase crashing to the ground. At the doorstep he swiveled his head and looked back at Jane with eyes full of menace. Without a word, he buried his sword in its sheath and went off into the night, his assistant trailing in his wake.

S
HAKESPEARE WOKE ABRUPTLY
, suffused by a feeling of dread. He felt sure he was not alone. The night was dark and the window was draped. He might as well have been blind. Jumping up from the mattress, he tried to gauge his bearings. Recalling vaguely where the door was, he stumbled toward it and pushed it open. Light trickled into the room from a glimmering wall sconce in the hallway beyond.

He looked back into the parlor. Nothing. Nobody. Just the mattress on which he had been sleeping and some items of furniture, all pushed to one side to make way for him. He shivered and wrapped his arms around his body. Leaving the door open, he went back to the mattress and climbed back under the blankets. He unsheathed the poniard at his belt and clutched it by the hilt in his right hand. It gave him a sense of security. On the floor beside the mattress lay his sword belt. Something did not seem right, or was he just imagining it?

Lying in the flickering gloom, he could not get back to sleep though his body cried out for it. His thoughts whirled around visions of Catherine Marvell and Isabella Clermont. Their faces melded into one and the scent of lust hung over him like an overripe apple in autumn, still moldering on the tree long after the leaves have fallen. He could not wait to see Catherine again, take her again into the sheets of his bed, yet nor could he dismiss the events surrounding the Davis witch and her French whore. Why take an eyebrow? What sort of spell did a witch cast with the short, wiry hairs of a man’s brow?