Diego laughed, too, as if he had heard it all before a thousand times. Chain him up, brand him, sling him and two hundred other Spaniards into the stinking hold of a slow carrack across the western sea, set him to work on a Caribbean plantation for ten years. And then I’d hang him.
Drake clapped his hands. And may he burn an eternity in hell, the way he has burned so many others. At last he turned to Boltfoot Cooper. They were both short, squat men and they stood toe to toe, neither man blinking. And you, Cooper, what in God’s name are you doing here? Why aren’t you shaping your staves, bending your hoops, and fashioning your faucets someplace?
He is in my employ, Shakespeare said.
Drake put an arm around Boltfoot’s shoulder. Boltfoot stood sullenly and stiffly as if in the grip of a tropic snake. I know, I know, Drake told Shakespeare. He works for you and Mr. Secretary. You’re a shipwreck of a man, Cooper. You should be building casks, which is what God put you on earth to do, not promenading around London with your caliver and cutlass like some landbound pirate!
And you’re a common thief, Mr. Drake.
Drake took his arm from around Boltfoot’s shoulder and pushed him in the chest. His face had turned to ice. I’ve killed men for less, Cooper.
Boltfoot stood his ground. You were not the only man to journey around the world, Mr. Drake. I was there with you near death from ship’s fever, hunger, and the bloody flux. Where is my share of the treasure?
Why, Mr. Cooper, you have had gold.
Enough to keep me from starving, maybe, Mr. Drake. You feed us a pension in dribs and drabs as it pleases you, and you turn us into beggars for what is rightfully ours. Where are the riches you promised us?
I will hear none of this. Mr. Shakespeare, please remove your man.
Boltfoot was not so easily silenced. Rarely had Shakespeare heard him say more than a dozen words together at a time, and now he was in full flow. Do you not recall that gold Will Legge and I found in the chest of the master’s cabin aboard the Capitana and gave to you? Six and a half pounds that you had not seen. You cut us a wedge twenty-nine ounces and marked it with our names and pledged it to us when we reached England. Where, then, is that gold now, Mr. Drake? Will and I have seen none of it.
Drake was near foaming with anger. God’s faith! You are the vilest knave that ever lived, Boltfoot Cooper. I tell you, you and all the men have had your share and more. Did I not write your names in glory?
Shakespeare decided it was time to intervene. Sir Francis, if I may speak with you a while in private-
I’ll run you through, Cooper, you base scoundrel-
A brief word or two, Sir Francis?
Drake snapped out of his tirade and turned toward Shakespeare. Get me away from the company of this monstrous, dissembling, perfidious, lame bilge-scum of a man. Come, Mr. Shakespeare, Mr. Stanley, let us adjourn and take some wine. Diego, you stay with Cooper. He nodded briefly toward his wife. M’lady…
Drake strode ahead of them into the adjoining room, the slight limp he carried from a leg wound sustained in his raid on a Spanish mule train at Nombre de Dios still evident fourteen years later. The three men sat at a table and Drake hammered it with his fist. The Queen will not hear me. She affects to despise me for the lack of pearls, gold, and emeralds brought her from the Spanish Main this last year, but she knows I wreaked terrible harm to the Spanish King. And if she’d give me the commission of ships I need, I would go and sink this king and his enterprise forever.
Sir Francis…
I know, I know, Mr. Shakespeare, you have something to say. But hear me out. I am the one man in England who can save this Queen and this realm from the foul Antichrist of Rome and his Spanish toy dog…
That, Sir Francis, is why I am here. Shakespeare knew as well as any the boastfulness of Drake. It was common knowledge in England and throughout Europe, and those who did not fear him and admire him sneered at him for it.
And yet he had much to be boastful about. Some said the total plunder taken on his three-year round-the- world voyage amounted to five hundred thousand pounds. Much went to the Queen and her treasury, yet Drake himself was left one of the wealthiest men in the realm.
He had won it through courage and cunning and remarkable attention to detail. However distant the sea, he never allowed his ships to fall into disrepair. Despite hunger and illness, he would drive his vessels ashore to be careened-clearing the hulls of barnacles and weed-so that they remained trim and swift and strong.
Never did he shy away from a fight-either with the Spaniards or native peoples. Yet neither did he kill unnecessarily. When he took prisoners, he treated them with courtesy and mercy-a thing rarely true of the Spanish.
Back home, he had for many years been the star in the Queen’s firmament, always welcome in her presence with his vivid tales of a world beyond these shores. Yet now, when England needed him most, he found himself washed up and out of favor. And he could not contain his rage.
He eyed Shakespeare warily.
Tell me then, sir. Why are you here? Some threat to my life, I am told.
A threat that Mr. Secretary takes exceeding serious, Admiral, coming as it does from a ciphered message between Mendoza and the Spanish King.
Drake laughed, a long crashing wave of a laugh. The Spanish King kill me? I will nail his ears to the flummery altar in his Escorial palace before he kills me, Mr. Shakespeare.
We believe Mendoza has found a seasoned mercenary, a paid assassin, to do his work for him. The price on your head, Sir Francis, has increased considerably.
Well, well, and what are the Spaniards offering now? Twenty thousand ducats it was last time, I do believe.
It is now seventy thousand.
Drake clapped his hands, like a river fisherman who has just landed a twenty-pound pike. They will be offering ten times seventy thousand before I am in my grave, Mr. Shakespeare. What say you, Captain Stanley?
I agree entirely, Sir Francis. But perhaps it would be prudent to hear Mr. Shakespeare out. The world knows you are invincible at sea, but now you are ashore, you are not so safe.
Indeed, sir. And do I seem afraid? Is John Doughty at large again with his wooden sword to scare me into my mother’s bed?
This was going to be difficult. Shakespeare understood that it was vital to play to Drake’s vanity. No, Sir Francis, you seem anything but afraid. And that, we believe, is the card Mendoza and his hireling will play. Because you are so very visible at Deptford, at Gravesend, and at court, you are a tempting target-dare I say an easy target-for a determined killer. I understand that you do not fear for your life and never have, but we must all fear for the life of Her Majesty and for the future of England. If you should fall to a Spanish ball, bolt, or blade, we will all be lost.
Drake stood up and started pacing again. His face was florid now, a hot red. He was silent a while, then he turned sharply toward Shakespeare and Stanley. So then, what does my friend Mr. Secretary propose?
Shakespeare sighed. He wants me to protect you.
And how would you do that?
Firstly by asking you to curtail your movements. To make yourself less visible, surround yourself at all times with trusted lieutenants. When you board a ship to inspect its caulking and provisioning, spend as little time on deck as possible. When you are at court, avoid the public areas. When you are in the dockyards or chandleries, keep a watchful eye at all times and do not tarry long in one place. Take no chances, Admiral. Your apparel-he nodded toward Drake’s brilliant velvet gown-is very visible.
Drake’s brows knitted in amusement. You don’t think I wear a cloak like this outside court, do you? I’m a mariner, Mr. Shakespeare, I dress in sea clothes. So how else would you protect me if God wills it otherwise?
This was the hard bit. Shakespeare took a deep breath. I would assign Mr. Boltfoot Cooper as your personal guardian, Sir Francis.
Drake exploded with laughter. Cooper! My personal guardian!
He is very handy with his caliver and cutlass, Sir Francis. He knows your ways…
Never. In God’s faith, never.
Shakespeare played his final card. Mr. Secretary Walsingham, your friend, requests this of you. He
