the land. Perhaps Alice was ashamed of what she had become. But when she realized that Starling intended to enter the same line of work, she warmed to her. I never understood what you saw in that pig Edward, she said when Starling told her about her husband’s viciousness. I’d rather die of the French pox in London town than live as a beaten goodwife with a drunken coal hewer for a husbandman in Strelley. Over drinks in the Bel Savage, she had told Starling where to find Cogg.
This is the way things are with him, Starling, so listen well. He’s as fat as six men stuck together, but never laugh at him or shy away from him. He likes Paris tricks, so use your tongue like this. Alice rolled and curled her tongue to show just what Cogg wanted. His terms are half and half, but you’ll have to pay him for food and lodging, too. It doesn’t sound the best bargain this side of Cheapside, but Cogg always gets us a good price. Keeps us free of the pox, mostly, which is what the men want. You’ll learn how to look at them, see if they’re diseased-and tell them to piss off if they are. Cogg’s got ointments of herbs from the apothecary to keep us free of it. Told me he paid for them with the eyes and tongue of a hanged woman. But remember this: if you do get the pox, you’re out, and then it’s the lowest stews in Southwark or back to Strelley.
Retracing her steps, Starling was about to knock at Cogg’s front door when she heard a noise from inside. Voices. It seemed as if he had another visitor-but this was a man’s voice, not another girl. She turned the door handle and found it was open, the lock sheared away from the wood. Whoever was in there with Cogg had done this; she was sure the lock had been secure when she left. Starling slipped into the front room. She heard footfalls at the top of the steps and quickly hid herself, crouching behind a workbench and boxes.
The man she saw with Cogg was tall, dressed darkly, cleanshaven. She felt a chill of unease and wished she had not entered this house again. As she watched him follow Cogg through to the back room and heard the whump of violence and Cogg’s shrill scream, she trembled in fear.
She knew the smell of violence too well. It stank of the sleeping room at the cottage she once called home. Each night, when her husband returned from the coal mine, his face and hands and clothes black, he would eat whatever food she had scavenged or grown, drink strong ale, then hit her. Every night. Every night of the year, without fail. Some nights he would make her lie flat on the straw, her wrists tied to the rough-hewn bed leg with his leather belt as he beat her with the broken haft of an old hayfork. And then, inevitably, he would occupy her, brutally but briefly, as if only her pain could bring him pleasure. Every daybreak when he went off to be wound down the well into the pit of the earth with his little tallow lamp and coal pick, she would pray for the walls to cave in and bury him. And when that didn’t happen, she stopped believing in God and took the road for London.
Huddled behind the workbench, Starling could hear her heart. Did that mean the man in dark clothes could hear it, too? She saw the two men return to the front room. Cogg’s left arm hung limp at the wrist, broken, blood dripping where the bone protruded through the skin. She felt no pity for him. She felt no pity for any man. The other man was carrying something. It looked like some sort of tool, but she had never seen its like before.
Cogg took something from the cabinet behind the ware-bench and threw it at the other man’s face. It was a pathetic effort, evaded easily, and as Cogg lunged toward the man, the dark-clothed one swiftly sidestepped him and pushed Cogg forward so that he fell to the floor, flat on his face. The stranger sat on him, his legs straddling his huge back, and pulled Cogg’s straggly hair. Then, with a thin, black-handled dagger, he stabbed twice at the fat man’s face, the blade descending each time into the eyes and through to the brain. To the hilt. Cogg didn’t scream, but gurgled and thrashed and grunted with the urgency of an animal that suddenly finds itself prey.
The dark-clothed man stood. He wiped the blood and brain from his blade on a rag and sheathed it before dropping some gold coins into his leather purse. He then picked up the objects that had been thrown at him, slung the unidentified tool over his shoulder, and left as quietly as he had arrived.
Starling waited long minutes behind the workbench. Cogg’s feet were twitching but she knew he was dead. At last she came out from her hiding place and went over to him. He was no use to her now. She spat on him. Then she spat on him again. Somewhere in this house, she realized, there must be a goodly stash of gold. Cogg had been a wealthy man.
Chapter 10
They found Drake pacing a wood-paneled anteroom at Greenwich Palace like a man demented. Boltfoot had seen him pace like this many times, on the quarterdeck when the wind wouldn’t rise.
Francis Drake, Vice Admiral of Elizabeth’s navy, was a short, thickset man of forty-six. His sharp little beard was still fair and golden but now flecked with gray. His hair was a darker red, graying also, curled and combed back off his broad and deep forehead. His eyes retained the vital blue of his youth. He wore court clothes, a brilliant green velvet cape over a green and silver-wrought doublet, all tailored at great cost by Gaston de Volpere of Candlewick Street, along with an outrageous ruff, as wide as a serving platter. His blue eyes could twinkle with amusement but now they were angry, like the dark blue of the stormy sea that was his home.
He was angry, very angry, and nothing the two people with him in this small official room could do or say could calm him down. His young wife, Elizabeth Sydenham, had tried to soothe him without success and now sat on some cushions with a book of poems, trying to shut out the raging torrent that foamed from her husband. His constant companion, Diego, the slave he freed in the Spanish Indies and who had since circumnavigated the world with him, stood at a window, gazing idly out at a bark drifting slowly downstream toward the estuary. He had seen these rages so many times before, and they had long since ceased to frighten him. Drake glared at the new arrivals-Shakespeare, Stanley, and Boltfoot-and stopped his pacing.
In God’s faith, this is a sorry affair, Stanley. She won’t see me. There was a time when I would be admitted to her presence eight times a day; now, when we need her most, she closets herself with lady’s-maid poltroons like Davison and Burghley. This realm will be a Spanish colony before summer’s end if she continues this way!
Sir Francis, Captain Stanley said, bowing briskly. May I introduce Mr. John Shakespeare, an assistant secretary to Mr. Secretary Walsingham.
The furious cloud momentarily lifted from Drake’s brow. Ah yes, Mr. Shakespeare, I have been expecting you.
It is an honor to meet you, Sir Francis.
Likewise, likewise. A good man, Walsingham. England would be lost without him. I love him like a brother. Now, what exactly is his concern?
Shakespeare viewed the tableau before him with fascination. The great, heroic mariner, in a rage because the Queen refused to see him, his wife so busy in her poems that she scarce looked up at the new arrivals, and a blackamoor dressed like a fine English gentleman and affecting disinterest in the proceedings. What glue held these three disparate creatures together?
Catching the direction of Shakespeare’s eye, Drake broke in before he could speak. Forgive me, Mr. Shakespeare, I have not introduced you to my wife, Elizabeth…
Elizabeth’s delicate, heart-shaped face lit up in a guileless smile that seemed to cast sparkles in the fat sapphires, rubies, and pearls that adorned her neck and fingers. Shakespeare bowed to her and she held out her delicate white hand for a kiss. Drake, meanwhile, was moving swiftly on:… and my very good friend Diego, who probably hates the Spanish even more than I do.
Boltfoot Cooper had been hanging back, behind Shakespeare and Stanley, but now Diego caught sight of him and strode forward to shake his hand. Boltfoot, it is good to see you.
It is good to see you, too, Diego.
I saved Diego from the Spanish in Nombre de Dios, Drake continued, addressing Shakespeare and Stanley and ignoring Boltfoot. I think they had an idea that a hanging would make their saints look favorably on them, and Diego was to be the day’s entertainment. Luckily, he has a strong neck, because he was already dancing the hempen jig when we cut him down. Been my fine companion ever since. He is a master of tongues who has helped me many times talk to my captives when we have boarded ship or taken a town. How many languages do you speak now, Diego?
Four.
Four! English, Spanish, Portuguese…
And Mandingo, my own tongue.
Tell me again, Diego, what would you like to do to the Spanish King?
