Revenger (37 page)

S
UDELEY CASTLE ROSE FROM THE LATE MORNING
haze like a fantastical palace. John Shakespeare reined in his weary gray mare and gazed down on the magnificent vision nestling below him, deep in the folds of Gloucestershire.

A mass of flags fluttered idly from the battlements and towers of this great house. Its royal connections went back to the days when Great Henry brought Elizabeth’s mother, Anne Boleyn, here in 1535, the year before he relieved her of her head.

From churches all around, the joyful peal of bells filled the air. But it was the long train of carriages and horses, stretching into the distance further than a man could see, that really stirred the blood. At its head were Elizabeth’s servants, resplendent in their royal livery, followed by a troop of guards, banners held proudly aloft. Then came thirty of her equerries and chamberlains, followed by half a dozen Privy Councillors, among whom were Sir Robert Cecil, watchful and alert despite the exhausting day’s ride; the great Sir Thomas Heneage, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and the Queen’s truest friend; white-haired Howard of Effingham, Lord Admiral of the Fleet and the man who, with Drake, destroyed the Armada four years earlier.

With these was the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Whitgift—ferocious enemy of Puritans and Catholics alike—riding with
fifty of his own horsemen. And last, immediately preceding the royal carriage, came the Lord Treasurer, old Burghley, afflicted by the gout and suffering in the heat of the day.

Elizabeth sat alone in splendor, waving to the adoring throng of peasants and townsfolk that lined her route with cheering and waving of little flags. They had left their looms and their mills and their shepherding to come here, never having seen such pageantry and magnificence in all their lives. It was a sight they would talk of for years to come, regaling their children and grandchildren with tales of the day they saw Elizabeth, Gloriana, come with her court to their little town of Winchcombe to stay at Sudeley Castle and celebrate the Armada victory. The family who lived here—Giles, the third Lord Chandos, and his wife Frances Clinton—had spent six grueling months preparing for this visit, to offer their sovereign three days of unparalleled feasting and merriment.

Behind the Queen rode Essex, Master of the Horse. No one sat taller in the saddle. He was followed by more Privy Councillors, then two dozen maids of honor in fine gowns, riding side-saddle on white palfreys, and a hundred more of the royal guard. And so the progress went on: scores of nobles and knights, courtiers and their retainers, hundreds of men and women, receding into the distance. Among those closest to the fabulous royal carriage, Shakespeare spotted the squat, feral figure of Richard Topcliffe. Even at this distance, two hundred yards or more, he exuded a raw malice that would frighten children and dogs.

Shakespeare was exhausted. He had pushed on hard westward and a little north across England. He had ridden through the night until he was almost asleep in the saddle. Even now, with this remarkable sight below him, he could happily fall from his horse and sleep in the open field.

Yet though he was driven in his desperation to meet up with the royal train, he had not been able to ignore the state of the country he passed through along the way. The England he had
encountered was very different from the glittering spectacle of the Queen and her train now entering Sudeley. He had ridden through a land of desperate poverty, dry fields of tares, pathetic beggars with outstretched hands, gibbets of bones at every crossroads, even the occasional unburied victim of starvation and disease left at the roadside as carrion for the magpies and crows to peck at. The sights had filled him with gloom.

He would have to find lodgings. Every spare room and bed in the town would be full. He shook the reins and spurred his weary mount gently forward. First, he had to try to find Essex. Clearly McGunn had discovered Shakespeare’s links to Cecil—but had he told Essex?

He also needed to speak secretly with Cecil. There was much to tell him, but one thing he could not reveal: his brother’s part in all this. Somehow, Shakespeare thought through the smoke of his tired mind, he had to protect Will from the deadly foolishness that had enmeshed him in this web of intrigue.

E
LEANOR DARE SAT ON
the green and slippery water-stairs at Dowgate and refused to move. The brackish incoming tide lapped at her feet, soaking her shoes. Boltfoot did not have the strength to drag her and, besides, a mass of people thronged the landing stage; he did not want one of them to intervene or call the constable.

He squatted down beside her and tried to reassure her. He could see that she was terrified and stricken with horror at the fate of Davy Kerk.

“Was he your husband, Ananias?”

She shook her head.

“Who did it? Who killed him?”

She put her hands to her mouth and gasped for breath.

Boltfoot tried again to put a comforting arm around her, but she pushed him away and hunched into herself.

“I am not here to hurt you, Mistress Dare. I was sent to find you by my master, John Shakespeare, on behalf of the Earl of Essex. Will you not come with me now to Essex House? You will be safe there.”

Her breathing was panicky and shallow. She clenched her hands into fists. In anguish, she began to hit her head at both temples, screwed her eyes closed, and bared her teeth in a silent scream.

On an impulse, Boltfoot withdrew his dagger from his belt and cut the rope that bound them together. “There,” he said. “Go. You are free to go.”

But she made no move to get up or escape; merely sat and beat herself in her torment.

Boltfoot stood up. “Come with me, or go. If you come with me, I will protect you.” He said the words quietly; they were for the woman alone, not the crowd waiting for wherries across the Thames. Two or three people glanced at them, but shrugged it off; whatever was happening between this man and woman looked no more than a domestic dispute between husbandman and goodwife.

He thought she was close to madness. Three years at sea circumnavigating the globe with Drake had taught him to deal with Spaniards, scurvy, and storms, but they had not shown him a way to cope with a distraught woman. On the rare occasions Jane had a weeping fit, he could do naught but stand and watch her, wishing himself anywhere else in the world. Now he felt just like that.

“At least come with me to my home near here where we may talk. I promise I will do you no harm.”

She shook her head again, violently. Her hands twisted and turned and she tugged at a ring that bejeweled her slender forefinger.

“I swear before God you can trust me. Could I not have killed
you back there, at the house? Or delivered you into the hands of the murderer?”

Eleanor turned and looked at him, her startling blue eyes with the strange gray rings ablaze. “Davy wanted you dead. He said you would lead him to us, and you did. I should have left you on the street to die.” Her voice was clear; she was beside herself with anger.

“I led no one to you. Who are you talking about?”

“McGunn, of course! McGunn. The Devil himself.”

McGunn? The Irishman who had come to bring Master Shakespeare to the Earl of Essex. As Boltfoot put the pieces together in his mind, he realized the true import of what he had done: he had found this woman for McGunn and the Earl of Essex. She was right: he
had
indeed led them to her.

He hung his head. “I am sorry. I did not know.”

“How could you? How could anyone know how far McGunn would go to find me? I am a dead woman. And you have killed me just as surely as if you had put my neck into the halter.”

They could not go to Essex House or home to Dowgate: McGunn could be watching at either place. The only thing that had stopped him killing Eleanor at Bank End had been Boltfoot’s loaded caliver. Next time, Boltfoot knew, McGunn would be better armed.

Eleanor stood up and grasped Boltfoot’s hand. “Come with me. But be quick. There is a place we may find sanctuary.”

She loped through the narrow streets. Boltfoot struggled to keep up with her. The weight of his caliver and his cutlass and the pounding of his head made him sluggish. He could scarcely focus on the road ahead, yet still he stumbled on, his clubfoot scraping the dust of the road into a snail’s track behind him.

In a quiet alleyway, she stopped. He slumped down against the daub wall of an overhanging house and fought to draw breath.

“We are going to the house of someone I believe will help us,”
she said in a whisper. “He does not know of my existence here in this town, yet I believe we may trust him.”

Boltfoot tried to untangle the cobweb of his mind. The woman had survived this long, somehow, so there seemed a good chance she knew what she was about. He had a plan of his own: leave London with her as quickly as possible and join Jane and Mistress Shakespeare. They must be well away from the city by now, probably in Stratford. Eleanor would be safe there, too. He would go to the groom, Sidesman, to be certain.

Yet McGunn would be watching the stables at Dowgate. He could not go there with this woman. He needed to leave her somewhere, if only for a short period, while he found out more.

“Yes,” he said. “Let us go to your friend.”

They went slower now, walking northward up Broad Street toward the city wall near Bishop’s Gate. Here were the immense buildings of the Dutch church and Winchester House, on the right Gresham College and, as they turned into the wide sweep of Wormwood Street, Tylers’ Hall, one of the great livery companies on which the wealth of the city was based.

Eleanor glanced around, walked a little further eastward past the gaping gateway out of the city, then ducked into a short alleyway. Boltfoot struggled on in her wake.

The woman hesitated at the modest doorway to a small dwelling. She raised her hand, but before she could knock, the door opened and a monstrous face confronted them, scarlet with flakes of white dead skin over all its bulbous surfaces. Eleanor fell back in shock, as did the monstrous figure itself.

“Eleanor?” the bulky figure in the doorway demanded tentatively.

“Foxley?”

“God’s blood, it
is
you, Eleanor.”

“Foxley, your face …”

“Oh, that. Scorched by the sun.” He did not elaborate.
“Eleanor, how are you here?” He stepped back into the house, allowing his sister-in-law in.

With trepidation she walked forward into the darkness. Boltfoot followed, his hand firmly gripped about the hilt of his cutlass.

Foxley Dare held Eleanor to his enormous body, enveloping her in his burnt and blistered arms. She submitted to his embrace without returning it in any way. Sensing her distance, he stood away from her. “And my brother?” he asked. “What of Ananias? Are you both home? The world had thought you dead.”

She shook her head quickly.

“Ananias is dead?”

She said nothing but held her arms about her, tight.

Foxley nodded. “I am sorry, for I loved him. Yet I had expected it.” He turned to Boltfoot. “And who might you be, Mr. Pirate?”

“Cooper. Boltfoot Cooper. I take it you are her husband’s brother?”

“Yes.”

“She is in great danger. There is a man called McGunn who would do for her. I do not know why. But I know that if he discovers she is here, your own life will be in peril.”

“What manner of man is this?” Foxley asked.

“From across the sea in Ireland,” Boltfoot said. “A brutish fellow with a face like a dog, yet given to wearing fine courtly clothes.”

“He is not the only one that seeks you, Eleanor,” Foxley said. “Then we are not safe here. It must be one of McGunn’s men.”

“He gave his name as Shakespeare. I thought him an honest man.”

Boltfoot smiled at last. “He is my master.”

From an inner doorway, a boy appeared. Foxley clasped a fat arm around his young shoulders. “And this is my nephew John. John, say good-day to your stepmama.”

The boy was slender, though strong, with dark, tousled hair and clever eyes. He was nine or ten years of age.

“Good-day, mistress,” the boy said.

She shook his hand. “Good-day, young John. Do you recall me?”

He shook his head.

“How could you? It is five years since last you saw me.” She looked at him closely and smiled sadly. “You are the very image of your father, my husband. God rest his soul.”

“I cannot remember him.”

“He spoke of you often, though. I know he would have been very proud to see what a fine boy you have become.”

Chapter 35