do not mourn their cousin’s murder?”
“That’s what I heard, Mr. Shakespeare.”
“It is tittle-tattle. You have already been branded. For listening to such idle talk, you can expect to lose your ears. And for repeating it, I could easily recommend you have your tongue pulled out by its root and fed to the kites. I have heard enough from you, Glebe. We will continue these inquiries at Her Majesty’s pleasure. You are under arrest. Come with me.”
Glebe put up his hands, palms facing Shakespeare as if he would push him away. “Tarry, sir. Just say what you want to know and I will tell you true. I pledge it.”
“You know what I want, Glebe. I want to know who mentioned a relic and cross to you. I want to know who mentioned the name Robert Southwell to you. Furnish me now with this information or tonight you will sleep locked away with thieves and murderers and may be questioned under duress.”
Glebe’s narrow eyes were flickering. Shakespeare knew he had him where he wanted him: desperate and afraid.
“Mr. Shakespeare, I want to help you but what can I say? These are just things I heard in a tavern booth. Idle talk among apprentices and merchants, sir. The lifeblood of London. Everyone wants the news. I could sell The London Informer twice over, sir.”
“Glebe, I don’t believe you. You’re coming with me.”
“All right, I’ll come. But let me attire myself properly first. It’s bitter out there.”
“Just get your cloak and boots.”
Shakespeare heard a low whistling behind him and spun around. The two wenches from Glebe’s bed, sisters if he were to be believed, were standing at the bottom of the steps not three feet from him. They did look alike, as sisters would. They were healthy, plump girls, and they were both naked from head to toe, thrusting their goodly- sized chests out toward him.
Shakespeare stood looking at them a moment too long. They were alluring in a base kind of way, and he was stirred as any man might be. He turned back just in time to see Glebe making off through the back room. Shakespeare stepped forward to pursue him but found the two women either side of him, rubbing themselves against him, trying to kiss him, holding his arms, restraining him, tickling his stones through his breeches. Angrily he pushed them aside and forged ahead after Glebe. But the printer was gone.
The two women cackled with laughter.
“There will be a price to pay for this,” Shakespeare told the women in a fury, and immediately felt foolish.
“A price, love? We’re free. Anytime you like.” Again, they fell about laughing and Shakespeare realized it was a lost cause. He would send men later to break up the press, but there was little else to do here. The women disappeared upstairs with much hilarity, presumably to get dressed, while Shakespeare searched the room. He found a print of the poems of Aretino and some woodcut prints illustrating its bawdy verses. There was also a pile of almanacs containing the preposterous predictions of the French fraud Nostradamus and an account of Sir Walter Raleigh’s recent venture into Roanoake in the New World. Shakespeare took copies of each of these, along with the most recent London Informer broadsheet, and carried them outside to where Slide was waiting with the mounts.
“Was he there, Mr. Shakespeare?”
“Don’t ask, Harry. Don’t ask.”
Chapter 13
Job Mallinson sat in the court room at Stationers' Hall by St. Pauls and looked out of the tall window onto the company’s bleak winter gardens. He held his hand to his bandaged jaw as if somehow this could relieve his pain of the toothache that had afflicted him all night. In other times, when his head did not throb like a smithy’s hammer beating iron on an anvil, he was known for his good humor and amusing tales. Now he simply sat and shivered and wished the day away. He had decided to come here because he could no longer bear his wife’s ministrations. She had given him salves for his wounded mouth, but they did little to help and, anyway, her talking doubled the pain. A walk to Stationers’ Hall through the brisk air seemed the best way to take his mind off his predicament.
A liveried manservant came in and spoke with him. He hesitated a few moments, then nodded in assent, and the servant disappeared, only to reappear a minute later with John Shakespeare.
Mallinson rose to greet him and the two men shook hands. They had met before, first at a Guildhall banquet celebrating the setting sail of John Davis’s expedition in quest of the northwest passage, and then two or three times since on state business when seditious materials had been discovered.
“I am sorry to see you have some ague about the face, Master Mallinson,” Shakespeare said, indicating the bandage.
“Tooth,” Mallinson said, as well as he could.
Shakespeare, realizing that Mallinson would find conversation difficult, came straight to the point of his visit. “Mr. Mallinson, I need information about some newfound prints that have been discovered.” He held up the scrap of paper. “Is it possible to identify which press has been responsible for printing this?” Then he held out a copy of Walstan Glebe’s broadsheet. “And could it have been printed by the same press that produced this?”
Mallinson examined the papers. As Warden of the Assistants with the Stationers’ Company, he was steeped in all things to do with printing, yet he knew his limitations. In a faint voice, he said, “Yes, I think it is possible, but I am not the man to help you. You need one with more expertise in such matters.” He winced as he spoke, and a trickle of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.
“Is there someone here who might be able to help me then, Master Mallinson?”
Mallinson shook his head, then closed his eyes. He breathed deeply, steadying himself to speak once more. “No, Mr. Shakespeare, not here. But there is a man who might be of assistance. His name is Thomas Woode. He is a book merchant and an agent of Christophe Plantin’s printworks of Antwerp. Woode has made much money by his printing of playbills, for which he possesses the monopoly. He has a house close by the Thames at Dowgate. You cannot miss it, sir, because it is scaffolded. If anyone can help you, Thomas can. He is a good man.”
“Thank you, Master Mallinson. And I wish you well of your tooth. One more thing: get your men to break up an illegal press in Fleet Lane. It is run by a scurrilous fellow called Glebe.”
Mallinson attempted to smile, but it was more like a grimace. “Oh yes, Mr. Shakespeare. I know of Walstan Glebe. We have been looking for him for quite a while. It will be a pleasure for our men to break his press into a thousand pieces.”
Starling Day and her cousin Alice were drinking and singing in the Bel Savage. They were certain they had covered their tracks. Half an hour earlier, in Cogg’s bawdy house, they had given a piece of their mind to Parsimony Field and had sauntered out, laughing and jeering. Now they were buying drinks for the off-duty girls and anyone else who happened to be in the tavern.
Parsimony, who was not only Cogg’s best girl but also ran the whorehouse on his behalf, had been struck dumb by the audacity of Starling and Alice. None of the girls had ever dared tell her to fuck off before, and if they had they would have been beaten senseless for their pains; Parsimony was tall and strong enough to hold her own against a lot of men, let alone women, and she had the backing of Cogg. But she had been caught off guard by the pair of them, Starling and Alice, talking to her like that. After regaining her composure, she followed them into the long bar of the Bel Savage and watched them getting more and more drunk by the minute.
“Come on, Arsey-Parsey, come and have a drink with us,” Alice called, catching sight of her. “I’ll buy you a beaker of nightshade cordial, ducks.” And she thrust two fingers in the air as a salute.
For a moment, Parsimony considered going up to the pair at the bar and dragging them by the hair back to the stew. But she wasn’t sure she could manage it with both of them, and she didn’t want to risk humiliation in front of the other girls. Cogg would expect her to act, however, so she must do something. He wouldn’t want to lose two whores, that was certain.
As she watched, the taproom became more and more raucous. In unison, Starling and Alice turned their backs on Parsimony, lifted their skirts, bent forward and exposed themselves full-on in her direction, then farted and collapsed onto the sawdust-strewn floor, laughing. When they got up again, Parsimony noticed something she
