interrogation if need be. He also had a curious compulsion to see Catherine Marvell again. Had he been thinking more clearly, he might have recognized the symptoms; age twenty-eight, a time when most men were settled into comfortable marriage and fatherhood, and still in need of a wife. All he could think was that he was a poltroon, a fool for a girl with whom he had scarcely even talked. And there was nothing he could do about it.
The Marshalsea Gaoler was a giant of a man, yet when Shakespeare announced he was there on Queen’s business, he thought the man seemed uneasy.
“I would see John Doughty, Mr. Turnkey.”
The gaoler looked genuinely puzzled. “I do believe I know no one of that name, sir.”
“Come, come. Doughty had plans to kill Sir Francis Drake. He has been here these five years past, I am certain.”
The gaoler shook his head. “No, sir, for I have been here myself for three of those years, and I do not recall ever having a prisoner of that name or similar.”
“Let me see your records.”
The gaoler gave Shakespeare a bewildered look.
“You do have a black book, I take it, man?”
“Of course, sir. But how could that help if the prisoner you seek isn’t here?”
“Let’s just have a look, shall we.”
The gaoler’s room offered little respite from the gloomy atmosphere of the prison. He had a table, two stools, a fire, and the tools of his trade: bunches of great keys, lashes and canes, brutish manacles and deadweight chains. He reached up to a dusty shelf and brought down a tome, which he dropped with a thud on the table next to his half-eaten trencher of food.
Shakespeare turned the thick pages of the black book back to the year 1582 and the time when Doughty should have been brought here. There it was: Doughty, John, for conspiracy to do murder; close confinement.
“Here is our man, Mr. Turnkey.”
The gaoler clanked his keys nervously. “Never did hear of the man, Mr. Shakespeare, sir. You’d be welcome to look in all the cells and talk to whomsoever you please, but I defy you to find someone of that name here.”
Shakespeare looked the gaoler in the eye. Despite his unease, the man was telling the truth. So what had happened to Doughty?
“Do you have any prisoners who have been here five years or more, someone who might recall this man?”
“Aye. I think I could help you there. Davy Bellard is the man, sir. Been here fifteen years or more for counterfeiting. As fine and clever a man as you could meet, Mr. Shakespeare.”
Bellard was a short fellow with long, unkempt hair and beard that had evidently not been trimmed during all his years of incarceration. But his eyes were still bright and alert. “Yes, I do recall John Doughty,” he said. “Angriest man I ever did know, Mr. Shakespeare. Wanted to kill the whole world for the injustices suffered by him and his brother. I made the mistake of laughing at him, I’m afraid, and he tried to kill me.” Bellard lifted the tattered remains of his shirt. “See there, that scar? He had a buttriss for paring horses’ hooves which he had somehow got hold of. Stuck me with it. Lucky for Davy Bellard, his aim was poor and the blade glanced off my ribs. I avoided John Doughty after that. He was a man beyond reasoning.”
Shakespeare examined the scarred-over wound. It had been a jagged gash and very unpleasant. “So what happened to Doughty, Mr. Bellard?”
“That’s the curious thing, sir. We thought he would be hanged for certain. Conspiring to commit a murder must be a gallows offense, or so we did believe. But if he was hanged, we heard nothing of it. One fine summer’s day, a few weeks after he arrived, he just weren’t here anymore. He might have been moved to another prison, but I couldn’t say. Nor would I know whether he was strung up or set free. It was a mystery to us all and still is, sir. Not that we gave it much thought, to be honest. I, for one, was glad to see the back of John Doughty.”
“Thank you, Mr. Bellard.” Shakespeare handed him a shilling. “What is your sentence?”
Bellard glanced around to make sure the gaoler was out of earshot. “Ten years, sir, but don’t tell the gaoler, sir, or he might kick me out. I do well here, sir. I don’t want to leave.”
Shakespeare managed a smile, the first one of the long day. “Fear not, Mr. Bellard, your secret is safe with me. And if you hear anything of any interest to me within these four walls, then I would be pleased if you would somehow get the information to me at Mr. Secretary Walsingham’s department.”
Bellard tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially. “Intelligencing is it, sir?”
“Something like that. In particular, I would like to know of any Flemings you might have word of. And any Jesuits…”
Shakespeare took his leave of the prisoner and asked the gaoler to take him, separately, to see Piggott and Plummer, the two priests of whom Harry Slide had told him. It was a long shot, but Shakespeare was more than a little interested in the guests at the Mass and dinner of which Slide had told him. There might, just, be more information to be had from these men. If they could lead him to the Jesuit Southwell, it would be one rod off his back.
Plummer was first. “Ah, Mr. Shakespeare. Harry Slide has told me of you.”
“And he has told me of you, too, Mr. Plummer. You give him information from time to time, I believe.”
“Indeed, I do, sir.”
“I would know more of this Mass that was held here. Yourself, Piggott, three ladies-Anne Bellamy, Lady Frances Browne, and the Lady Tanahill-I believe.”
“And a Jesuit called Cotton.”
“Are you sure that was his real name›”
Plummer scratched his privies as if he had the French pox-which, for all Shakespeare knew, he might well have had-and made a face as if he were in extreme discomfort. “Now, how could I possibly know that? If you ask my opinion, I would say it was highly unlikely that he was using his real name. Few of us sent over from the English colleges do, you know.”
“I understand. Could he, then, have been Father Robert Southwell?”
“Mr. Shakespeare, how could I possibly know? I have heard of Southwell. He is a poet and was renowned among the Popish fraternity for his saintliness even before he came to England last summer. But I was not at Douai or Rome with him, so I have not made his acquaintance.”
“We have a description of Southwell from his younger days. It is said he was not tall, nor of a very great weight. His hair a flame-golden color and his eyes green or blue. Could that have been the man Cotton?”
Plummer did not have to think hard. “It most certainly could have been him, Mr. Shakespeare, though I would have said his eyes were gray.”
“And did he give you any inkling of his movements? Where he lodges? Who he sees?”
The priest shook his head. “No, nothing. These Jesuits are cleverer than that.”
“And the ladies at the Mass, did they know him?”
“I think the Bellamy girl knew him, but not the other ladies, though I would say that they seemed much taken with him. As was I. He was an uncommon man and likeable. I could see how he could attract people to him and bring them into the Roman faith. Mr. Shakespeare, he would draw them all in.”
“What of your colleague, Piggott?”
“I don’t like the man. I don’t trust him and he doesn’t trust me. Piggott was quite familiar with Cotton, clutched him to his foul, pox-ridden breast and whispered secrets in his ear. If you want to know more of Cotton, you had best speak with him. Piggott is your man for that. I think he could be dangerous.”
“And the three ladies at the dinner?”
“Simpering, stupid women who would rather be occupied by God in heaven than enjoy a decent fucking here on earth, Mr. Shakespeare. I fear they are all on a mission to die, for which I am sorry, for they are harmless fools posing no threat to the state.”
Shakespeare made to leave. “I will see you are recompensed for this, Plummer. Keep your ears and eyes wide. I want word of a Fleming, one with a taste for being beaten by women, and beating them in turn. And tell me one more thing: the gaoler seemed mighty nervous when I arrived. Why do you think that might be?”
Plummer scratched his stones once more and then put his hand down the back of his woolen smock to rub his neck. “Fleas, Mr. Shakespeare,” he explained. “The place is alive with them. I fear they live on the rats, which are as fat as well-fed cats. Yes, the gaoler. A good man, runs a good prison here except for the fleas. But he has a little
