Prince - John Shakespeare 03 - (7 page)

Chapter 7

A
S
J
OHN
S
HAKESPEARE
approached the ancient nunnery of St Mary at Clerkenwell, the birdsong was suddenly silenced by the crack of a gunshot. Shakespeare reined in his grey mare. A pair of boys in ragged clothes wrestled furiously on the dusty path in front of him, oblivious to everything but their fight.

He looked about. It seemed the firing had come from within the former convent. Kicking on again, he stepped the mare around the boys and walked on past the well where the parish clerks once performed mystery plays. Ahead of him was the great entrance door to St Mary’s. The spring sun streaming through the leaves of a pair of silver birches dappled the grassy verge with light.

Shakespeare tethered the mare to a post, then strode on foot to the convent entrance. The great arched gateway was open and untended. He called out, but no one came. He walked in towards the central courtyard, from where he heard voices, then another volley of gunfire and cackling laughter.

Through clouds of powder smoke, he saw that the courtyard was a wide open, arid place, uncared for and thick with weeds. Had the Benedictine sisters still been here, they would surely have been aghast at the vision they beheld. Or perhaps they wouldn’t, he thought wryly; it depended whose version you accepted of what went on in the Catholic monasteries.

Three women were at one end of the yard. Two of them sat against the wall, flagons of some liquor or ale in their hands. The third one, a fair-haired woman in her forties who must once have been pretty, was on her feet, a smoking wheel-lock pistol hanging loosely from her fingers. Her top was bare, her breasts pendulous over a belly of loose skin and fat. The two sitting women were scarcely more decent, sitting with their legs apart and their cheap kirtles hitched up to reveal their thighs and more. Their hair was awry and their chemises open. One scratched at a pustule on her haggard face. The other, a dark-haired girl no older than seventeen, would have been comely if she had combed her hair – and if she had looked less hard and villainous. She had unmarked skin, like a milkmaid, and puffed at a clay pipe.

At the far end of the yard, tied by a cord to a hook in the wall, was a small dog, lying in a pool of its own blood. It was moving, but slowly, close to death from the pistol balls that had pierced it.

The women turned as Shakespeare entered. The bare-breasted woman raised the pistol and pointed it at him. Her friends burst out laughing once again.

Without hesitation, Shakespeare walked forward and wrenched the spent firearm from the woman’s grasp. She seemed unconcerned. ‘A sovereign and I’ll fire your pistol, dove. I know how to fire a man’s pistol …’

Shakespeare ignored her and went to the listless dog. He removed his dagger and cut its throat as an act of mercy, then returned to the women.

‘I am looking for Black Lucy. I believe she has premises here. Do you work for her?’

‘Work for Luce? The maggoty Moor wouldn’t look at us. And nor would we work for such a greasy drab.’

‘But you know where she is?’

‘What’s it to you – and what’s it worth?’ She grasped hold of one of her breasts and tried to push it into Shakespeare’s face. But she was unsteady from the drink and her knees buckled, sending her toppling forward. Shakespeare could have reached out and held her up, but he stepped back and let her fall to the cobble-stone ground. Her friends laughed. Shakespeare turned to them.

‘Do either of you know where she is? I’ll give you threepence.’

‘You done for our dog, mister,’ the young one said, blowing out smoke. ‘That little bitch was worth a lot to us. We saved her from the plague men and loved her like she was our kin.’ The woman began coughing.

Shakespeare knelt down and took the flagons from them. They were both about half full of strong ale. He started pouring one away. The women bridled and reached out their hands as if they were birds’ talons, but he easily evaded their grasp. ‘Well?’ he demanded as the last drop fell to the ground.

‘Sixpence,’ the young, hard-faced one said.

Shakespeare took out three pennies and held them up. ‘One each and you can have the rest of the ale back.’

‘Give them to us, then we’ll tell you.’

‘Tell me first.’

She threw back her knotted hair and gestured vaguely to a small passageway leading from the courtyard to the northern precinct of the old nunnery. ‘Back there. But you’d do better with us. Swive the three of us for a crown and we’ll use alum to make us virgins. She’ll charge you three sovereigns for just one of her loose-cunnied whores.’ The girl pulled her kirtle up past her bare belly and thighs and displayed herself to him.

Shakespeare put the flagon down, tossed them the three pennies and walked away.

‘Here,’ one of them called. ‘That’s our pistol you got there.’

‘It’s safer with me.’

A sign hung over the doorway of the old dorter where once the nuns had their plain beds and sparse living quarters. The sign was painted in gold on a black background and said simply
Vespers
.

Unlike the dust-strewn courtyard, the area here was well kept; the ground swept, the mortar and woodwork maintained in good repair. The door beneath the sign was newly crafted from oak and inviting.

Shakespeare saw that it was ajar and pushed it open. It gave on to an open hall with wood panelling. On the far wall, beneath a gallery, hung a long, brightly coloured tapestry. Shakespeare glanced at it, expecting its subject to be religious, perhaps the Virgin Mary, or some hunting scene. But then he saw that it was an exquisite needlework respresentation of a naked woman, dark-skinned, with chains of gold about her throat, her slender waist, her wrists and her ankles.

‘Good day to you, sir.’

Shakespeare turned. He frowned. She was a fair-faced woman in her early thirties, with a warm smile. The voice and face were vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place them. She seemed to have a clearer idea, for she stiffened, as if she recognised him.

‘I am seeking Lucy, whom I believe to be the mistress of this establishment.’

The woman, who wore good clothes, though bordering on the immodest with a low-cut bodice, regained her composure and bowed to him. ‘Please wait here, sir. There is a settle in the hall. Would you like the maid to bring you beer or wine?’

‘Beer would suit me well.’

‘It will be with you straightway.’ She began to walk off.

‘Do you not wish to know my name?’

The woman looked back and smiled conspiratorially. ‘We do not often deal with names at Vespers, sir, though you may invent one if you desire.’

Shakespeare laughed; it seemed he was taken for a client. The woman disappeared and he looked around the hall. It was beautifully furnished with cushion-laden settles, a polished table and coffers, and drapes about the high windows. He sat down and waited. After a minute a maid appeared, bowed and handed him a pewter pot of beer. He took a deep quaff, enjoying the tang of hops on his parched throat. He noticed some books on the table and picked one up, quickly looking through the pages. He smiled again; they were amatory sonnets. It occurred to him that the fine nature of the room might have led the casual visitor to believe this was a respectable house, but the book gave the lie to that. This was a whorehouse, however it might present itself. He sipped again at the beer and waited.

At the soft whisper of footsteps he looked towards the staircase that curved down from the gallery. A tall and elegant woman was gliding down. Her skin was of the darkest hue that Shakespeare had ever seen, her features exquisite and her bearing regal. As she approached him, with the woman from the door trailing in her wake, she seemed to curtsy, but it wasn’t really that, nothing more in truth than a gracious acknowledgement of his presence.

‘Good day, Mr Shakespeare. It is a great pleasure to meet you. I am Lucy.’

‘How do you know my name?’ He could not take his eyes from her skin, exposed at her neck and face and wrists, vanishing into a gown of gold.

She glanced at the woman at her side. ‘Beth knows you. Think back, Mr Shakespeare. Do you not remember your first love, Beth Evans?’

His brow creased in puzzlement and wonder. Beth Evans? Here, in a whorehouse? Could this be true? He stared at her and his eyes widened in recognition.

‘Beth?’ he said quietly.

‘Yes, it is me, John.’ Her eyes smiled back at him. ‘You really didn’t know me, did you?’

He shook his head.

‘I think you always had your nose in a book when you should have been looking at me.’ Her dark brown eyes and full lips creased in good humour. ‘I have watched your progress from afar, John. You have come a great distance from the Warwickshire meadows where we ran together.’

They had been but sixteen, sweethearts for one summer, or so it seemed. Perhaps five weeks, hardly more, and then she had taken up with the smithy’s son and left Shakespeare heartbroken. He felt a pang at the memory of it; he had sworn to be hers forever and now, when he met her again, he had not known her. How their paths had diverged: he had gone to Gray’s Inn, entered the service of Sir Francis Walsingham and later that of Sir Robert Cecil, and was believed, by some, to be destined for great things. Beth had become a common whore. Well, not so common by the look of her and this sumptuous establishment.

Lucy touched his arm. ‘I am sure there will be time aplenty for you to talk of times past. Come, Mr Shakespeare, how can I help you? I am sure it is not swiving you are after, for Beth assures me you are above the lewd sportings we habitually offer our clients.’

It was true enough, but somehow, in this place, it made him sound a very dull man.

‘I think I know you, John,’ Beth said, ‘even after all these years.’

Of course. He had been slow off the mark that summer of ’75. He had treated her like a lady and talked of Socrates and Bosworth Field, of Chaucer and his great ambitions for himself and England, when all she wanted was to be rolled in the hay like all her friends. ‘It is true,’ he said, nodding with a resigned sigh. ‘You do know me.’ He turned to Lucy. ‘No, I am not here for your services, mistress. I am here on Queen’s business with one question. Do you know the where abouts of Walstan Glebe?’

Lucy furrowed her brow as if she did not quite understand the question, but he was certain he saw a sparkle in her dark brown eyes. ‘Walstan Glebe?’

‘Come, come, mistress, you know him well.
L
for
Liar
burned on to his forehead. You must know, too, that I could have this establishment closed down before nightfall and you and all the whores –’ he caught the accusing stare of Beth Evans – ‘all the
occupants
interned at Bridewell.’

‘Mr Shakespeare, you do not need to threaten me. I will answer you straight. Of course I know Wally Glebe. But I will not tell you where he is, for that would be a breach of trust. I will, if you wish, get a message to him saying that you would talk with him.’

‘I cannot overemphasise the seriousness of this business. We have reason to believe that Glebe has knowledge of the recent gunpowder atrocity at the Dutch church. If he is in any way involved, then he is guilty of high treason. Anyone withholding evidence of any kind – including knowledge of his whereabouts – will be considered an accessory.’

Lucy folded her arms across her chest. ‘Mr Shakespeare, I wish the culprits caught as much as you. A great many of my clients are strangers from France and the Low Countries. I am, myself, of foreign birth and I do not like this present fervour against strangers. I have said I will go to Glebe – and I will.’

‘No, that is not enough. If you did so he would simply disappear, as he has done before. I have no wish to harm you, mistress, and I care not a jot how you earn your living, but if you do not give me the information I require, pursuivants will take you to the Tower, where you will be subjected to hard questioning none can resist. I must tell you that the Council has authorised the use of torture in this matter.’

‘Then you will have to torture me.’

Shakespeare was bemused. He had always hesitated to use such threats, but when he did they inevitably had an instant and dramatic effect. Not so here; she had not lost her charm, nor her equanimity. Her eyes still looked at him with humour. If she was afraid, there was no sign of it.

‘I will take you to him,’ Beth Evans said.

Shakespeare looked at her, then back to Lucy. Lucy said nothing, but the glimmer of a smile played around her full lips.

‘Will that do?’

‘You know where he is?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, he likes me, too. Return here at seven of the clock and I will take you. I know where he will be at that time, for I have been summoned to him.’

Chapter 8

‘
M
ARINER WERE YOU
, Mr Cooper?’ William Sarjent said, his voice booming across the riverbank as they awaited the ferry. ‘A sea battle don’t compare to the stench of powder and the clash of steel on land. When two regiments of foot meet on the field there is no hold to escape to; a captain of infantry cannot just turn with the wind and sail away, Mr Cooper. At the Maas river, in the mud and rain with every man’s powder wet and useless, I was at Norris’s side fighting pike to pike when he received a bloody wound to his chest that brought blood to his mouth, yet still we won the day.’

Boltfoot stood beside his horse in silence. In his ear there was the drum of a man’s voice, but he did not hear the words.

‘I was at Sidney’s side, too, when he received his fatal wound in the Low Countries. Place called Zutphen. We had two hundred foot and three hundred horse. Suddenly the fog lifted and three thousand Spaniards appeared. But we did not turn. No man under Norris’s command ever turned from a fight without express order. Never did you see a more gallant gentleman than Sir Philip Sidney. And Norris is the boldest of them all. You can keep your Drakes and Frobishers, Mr Cooper. They are ducks upon the water, not true fighting men. Norris – there’s a man’s man. Mr Quincesmith was his powder-master and took me as his prentice.’

At last the Woolwich ferry arrived and they walked their horses carefully aboard, amidst a packed group of wagons and a host of foot passengers. The rocking of the tide as the low barge pulled away from its moorings spooked one of the harnessed horses and it had to be restrained from pulling its wagon and several men into the dark grey flood.

On the north side of the Thames, deep in the dockyards that brought the wealth of the world to London, they disembarked from the ferry and mounted up once more. Turning westwards, they quickly joined the river Lea at its mouth and rode inland along its course. The landscape was low and fertile either side of the slow, winding stream. Water meadows and copses bounded the banks. Boltfoot reined in to get his bearings. Three Mills should be close now.

At his left side, Sarjent was running his hand through his black hair and saying something about the thunder of cannon and the taste of hot blood, words that every farm boy and villager for a mile about must have heard, so loud was the man. Boltfoot dug his heels sharply into the side of his long-suffering steed and rode ahead, wishing himself rid of this infernal braggart with his hunting-horn voice. He was not certain he could stand another day of this ceaseless roaring in his ear.

As he rode back towards the city, Shakespeare knew he was being watched. He knew well enough how to lose a following horseman, but instead he slowed down.

The day was dull and windless. He thought again about Henbird; had he misunderstood him or had he, indeed, been suggesting that Topcliffe was linked to Robert Poley and to the death of Marlowe?
Do not underestimate Queen’s servants.

But why would Topcliffe and Poley have conspired to kill Marlowe? Topcliffe said he shared the playwright’s antipathy towards London’s population of foreigners – so why kill him? And why tell Shakespeare he believed Marlowe was murdered? Shakespeare rode his grey mare across the busy six acres of Smith Field, then into the broad sweep of Little Britain, cutting in towards the city. He casually reined the horse to the right and into the labyrinth of narrow streets close by City Ditch. He walked on down a lane of overhanging houses, then turned left. Seeing that no one was about, he quickly dismounted and waited. He heard the follower before he saw him; the soft clip-clop of hooves on cobbles.

As his pursuer rode into the street, Shakespeare reached up and grasped at his arm and leg, wrenching him clean from the saddle. The man grunted in shock as he flew sideways and fell heavily to the ground. As he landed, he let out a cry of pain, his elbow and the side of his head cracking against the flagstones. Shakespeare was on him in an instant. In his hand he had the wheel-lock pistol he had taken from the three trugs close to Black Lucy’s bawdy-house. He sat astride the man and held the muzzle of the unloaded gun to his face.

‘One wrong move and you die here.’

‘Please – wait.’

‘Who are you?’

‘You know me.’

Shakespeare did, indeed, know him. He knew that soft, oily voice. He knew that slender, serpentine frame with the shoulders that were almost as one with the neck and he knew that contemptible, self-satisfied expression. It did not seem so smug now.

‘Morley …’

‘Mr Shakespeare, I must talk with you.’

Shakespeare held the gun back a few inches but it was still trained on Morley’s face. ‘If you want to talk to me, come to my door. Follow me like an assassin and you are like to die.’

‘I could not approach you at your house. I might have been seen.’

‘Well, you are seen now, and will pay for it.’

‘Please, Mr Shakespeare. I have followed you to Clerkenwell and now here. Had I wished to harm you, I could have done so before now. Will you not hear my story?’

Morley. Christopher Morley. One-time tutor to the Lady Arbella Stuart, claimant to the throne of England, in the household of Bess of Hardwick; one-time spy for Walsingham, but not to be trusted by any man; one-time confederate of the Earl of Essex in a high treason that had nearly cost both men – and others – their heads. Morley had crossed Shakespeare’s path once before – and that had been one time too many. He had hoped never to see the man again.

‘I should kill you here, in this street, like a plague dog.’

‘Then you would never hear the intelligence I have for you.’

‘Five seconds, Morley. Five, four—’

‘I know the name of the powderman …’

He was still in the scarlet velvet doublet and breeches he had worn when last they met, little more than half a year ago. Now the once fine velvet was dirt-stained, torn and threadbare, as if he had been living wild. His hair was uncombed and had grown longer; his wispy, dark moustache and the few strands of hair that constituted his beard had not been trimmed in weeks. He looked like a vagrant.

‘Indeed. Then tell me before I fire.’

‘I cannot – yet. But I
will
tell you.’

Shakespeare looked into his eyes, then withdrew the gun and stood up. Roughly, he pulled Morley up by the front of his filthy doublet. From his own saddlepack he took a length of cord, then thrust the wheel-lock under his arm, seized Morley’s arms and lashed his wrists together in front of him, knotting them tightly. He left a lead of about six feet, which he secured to the stirrup of the mare. It all happened so fast, Morley scarce had time to protest. Shakespeare clambered aboard the grey mare, leant across to take the reins of Morley’s horse and prepared to ride, dragging Morley behind.

‘Wait, there is more,’ his captive managed to say at last. ‘This is to do with Marlowe. They meant to kill me, not Kit. They are after me, Mr Shakespeare.’

Shakespeare looked down at him with disdain. ‘This street is not the place to discuss such things. We are going to Newgate. You will be very comfortable there, I am sure.’

‘Not Newgate …’

Shakespeare ignored him and slapped the grey mare’s flank.

Morley pulled back on the cord, his heels trying to dig into the ground. ‘No, not Newgate – your home – anywhere but Newgate. I will be known there and killed.’

‘Look at the place, Mr Cooper. It is a disgrace.’

Boltfoot surveyed the Three Mills. The palisade was too low and, in places, the stakes had fallen. A man could get in there with ease. No, he thought, a
squadron
of men could enter undetected.

In the distance he saw a group of idlers leaning against the side of the main mill building. They were dressed in jerkins and hose like workmen, but they were drinking, not working, and seemed engaged in chatter like denizens of the taproom.

Boltfoot shook his head in dismay. Sarjent’s verdict was true enough. It was easy to imagine powder disappearing from this place; from this distance, on a bridge over the Lea some six hundred yards away, it looked as watertight as a malkin’s colander.

‘They should have stayed with flour milling,’ Sarjent said.

Boltfoot looked at his companion curiously. ‘What do you know of this place, Mr Sarjent?’

‘It was a flour mill. There were three of them here, hence the name. Then two. Now one of those two is a gunpowder mill, founded five years since at the time of the Spanish Armada. See how she straddles the Lea? The river is tidal here, and it is the ebb that drives the wheels.’

‘Have you been here before?’

‘Aye,’ Sarjent said, his voice quieter now. ‘I was deputed here in ’88 when it was converted by the Knaggs. That’s Thomas Knagg and his father, who is now dead. But we fell out. I did not like their methods. They were not military men and seemed unaware – uncaring – about the dangers of powder.’

Boltfoot said nothing. He shook the reins of his mount.

Sarjent kicked on after him. ‘Come, Mr Cooper, let us go and pummel a few skulls.’

The keeper of the Counter prison in Wood Street was pleased to accept two shillings in his hand from Shakespeare. ‘Don’t you worry, sir,’ he said. ‘Mr Morley will not escape from here.’

‘Leave us now, master keeper. Send a turnkey with ale.’

The keeper, a bony-handed ancient with a long, ash-grey beard, bowed and backed out of the small cell. Morley sat hunched on a pile of clean straw, his back to the damp wall. He had the cell to himself, but there were no comforts other than this straw and the weak light that slanted in through a barred window high up in the thick stone.

Shakespeare stood by the door and eyed his miserable captive. He was surprised to see real fear in his face; he was used to the curled lip of sneering contempt from this man. ‘Well, Mr Morley,’ he said at last. ‘You are a shambles of a human being. Not one of the creator’s finest works, that is certain.’

‘I am brought to penury, Mr Shakespeare. I cannot work as a tutor without a recommendation from the Countess of Shrewsbury, and she will not give me one. Nor can I sell my odes, for no one has coin in these straitened times.’

‘What do you bring me? If you wish to stay out of Newgate, you had best tell the whole truth, and soon.’

‘I will tell you nothing without assurances of freedom – and silver. You have to protect me.’

Shakespeare cupped his hand on the hilt of his sword. ‘Protect you, Morley? All you will get is iron, fire and the Tyburn halter if you do
not
tell me everything I wish to know.’

‘Tyburn!’ the prisoner attempted to laugh at the dread word, but it came out as a sour bark. ‘Tyburn holds no terrors. It would be a blessed release from my woes. Nothing you threaten can make me more afraid than I am already, Mr Shakespeare. The men I talk of have forgot more about inflicting pain than the Spanish Inquisition ever learned.’

‘Why have you come to me?’

‘I told you: I need your protection. There is no one I can trust and I took you for an honourable man. You must give me the means to get to a place of sanctuary, as far from this rotten town as a man may go. Give me that and you shall have all the information you require.’

‘How much do you think you need?’

‘A hundred sovereigns. No less than that. I must have money to leave here and start life anew.’

‘I could not find such a sum and you know it, Mr Morley.’

‘Cecil could.’

‘Then give me something worth taking him. He would laugh and order in Topcliffe if I brought what you have told me thus far.’

The turnkey returned with ale. He was a gnat of a man, no more than four and a half foot tall, but square built. His keys rattled at his belt. In one hand he carried two beakers of musty ale. He picked a large lump of something unpleasant from his nose and scraped it into one of the beakers, which he handed to Morley before exiting with a smirk.

Morley hurled the defiled beaker of ale to the ground.

‘This is your life now, Morley, or what is left of it,’ Shakespeare said, handing him his own stale liquor. ‘If you do not cooperate with me you will live with rats and taste London’s prison holes until the hurdle draws you to your death.’

‘I will tell you what I know. But you will have no names from me until you return with one hundred sovereigns.’

‘Speak, then.’

Morley supped from Shakespeare’s ale and immediately spat it out with a retching noise.

‘Start with Marlowe. You said you were the intended victim, but that cannot be – Poley knew Marlowe well. There could have been no error there.’

‘This is poison, not ale!’

‘Marlowe …’

Morley wiped his grubby, threadbare velvet sleeve across his mouth and tangled beard. ‘I have oftentimes being confused with Marlowe. Our names can sometimes sound the same and we were both university wits and poets from Cambridge. But that is by the by. The one who ordered the killing was befuddled. He believed Marlowe wrote the placards by the Dutch church. An easy mistake to make – why, even the Council was deceived, so I am told.’

‘But it was you?’

He shook his head. ‘Not me alone. A group of us. But the one who paid for Marlowe’s death believed I was a threat to him, for I recognised him and realised he was not what he seemed. He will know soon enough, though, that he has had the wrong man killed.’

‘Was he one of your confederates?’

‘I cannot tell you. But I do now believe they want me dead, for they are convinced that I have betrayed them.’

‘But who are they?’

‘Bring me the sovereigns.’

‘Tell me – without names, if you must – what manner of people are they?’

Morley hesitated, as if wondering how much information he could afford to divulge.

‘I must have at least this, Morley.’ Shakespeare’s voice was less harsh. ‘The ones who wrote the placards must be the powdermen, yes?

‘Do not ask too much, or we will both die.’

‘Well?’

‘Mr Shakespeare, I will help you all I can. But I beg you to be circumspect. We – this group and I – wish to see the strangers sent home from our midst. There are many others. More than the Council could ever imagine: apprentices, merchants, even noblemen … men who do not like the strangers’ ways. They take our business. Why, I do believe the Countess of Shrewsbury herself has replaced me with a German or some such. They are like leeches or some canker on the body of England.’