“Well, I have no idea why he should wish me dead. I always promoted him and gave him great opportunity for plunder and glory Was he a Papist, do you think? Perchance we will never know. But I can say this: he was a good seafarer. I would have liked him at my side on this venture.” Drake glowered at Boltfoot. “Still, I am sure we can find a replacement. Do you think you could captain a ship, Mr. Cooper?”
“Possibly, Sir Francis, but I would rather be flayed than do so.”
“Hah! Still the same mongrel cur, eh, Boltfoot? And don’t go about congratulating yourself that you have saved my life. If Harper Stanley had somehow got into my cabin with his sword, I would have cut him down in my sleep. No one bests Drake and certainly not a beplumed peacock like Harper Stanley. Now then, I would like your thoughts, Diego. Look at this chart.” Drake jabbed his finger three times at the chart showing the coasts of Portugal and Spain. “We will attack the Antichrist’s ships here, here, and here.”
There was a knock at the cabin door and the ship’s master opened it. Drake looked up, irritated by the interruption. “What is it?”
“Mr. John Shakespeare to see you, Vice Admiral,” the master announced.
Surprised, Drake glanced at the entranceway. “Shakespeare, by God’s faith, what are you doing here?”
Shakespeare bowed, then rose, stiff-backed from his ride, to his full height. He was a good six inches taller than Drake and looked down at him uneasily. “Sir Francis, the killer has followed you to Plymouth.”
Drake laughed. “You are too late, Shakespeare! Your man Boltfoot and my friend Diego here have already done for him. He lies at the bottom of the Channel even now, with eels swimming into the hole that Boltfoot put in his belly.”
“You have killed Herrick? How so?”
“Herrick? They have not killed anyone called Herrick. They have dispatched Captain Harper Stanley, Mr. Shakespeare. The traitor came for me in the middle of the night, naked, like a thief. Diego and Mr. Cooper saved me the trouble of killing him by impaling him on their blades, then dropping him overboard. The world has been allowed to believe that he took his own life. Amusing, do you not think?”
Shakespeare was aghast. “You think Stanley intended to kill you?”
“It is a certainty.”
“That is a worrying turn of events, Sir Francis, but he was not the one I seek. There is another man, far more dangerous, sent by King Philip for the price on your head. He is utterly without fear or mercy and has already killed one of my best men, Harry Slide. It is he who shot at you at Deptford. Harper Stanley could not possibly have done that for he was aboard ship, not ashore.”
“Then we have two traitors to contend with. Or should I say ‘had’? For now there is just the one, which sounds like no danger at all, as we are to sail tomorrow.”
Shakespeare sighed. “And what of tonight, Sir Francis? What of the banquet? I must tell you that this Herrick will be there. It would be best if you were not.”
“What! Miss my own banquet, Mr. Shakespeare? You jest, sir! The Spaniard would laugh at me and I would die of shame. No, sir, bring on this Spanish killer and I will happily deal with him! But pray tell me, sir, what the devil has happened to your eyebrow? You look most curious without it.”
The tension in Seething Lane was palpable. Jane shuttered the windows as soon as darkness fell, and they spoke in low voices in case anyone listened at the door. They felt besieged.
The confrontation with the magistrate Richard Young had shaken Jane to the core. “I can’t work, Catherine, but I have so much to do. There is cheese to be made, linen to be repaired, hose to be darned, preserves to be bottled and stored…”
“Jane, stop it. You’re not helping.”
“If only Mr. Shakespeare were here. I won’t sleep tonight for worrying. What if the magistrate comes again? What if he brings Topcliffe?”
Catherine took Jane by the shoulders and made her sit on a bench at the table. “They will come, Jane. And that is why you must stop this. Take a deep breath. We must think.”
Jane breathed deeply. It did not help. She was worried less for herself than she was for Catherine and the two children. “We have to get you and Grace and Andrew away from here, Catherine.”
“Yes. They will come back in force tonight and they are utterly without pity I must tell you, Jane, they are so soaked in blood that they will think nothing of killing us all. My master, Mr. Woode, could well be dead by now. But even that will not make them falter. They are relentless; their thirst for vengeance will not be slaked even by a death. They will take his children and break them on the Bridewell treadmill as a warning to others.”
Jane hugged Catherine and gave her a weak smile. “How can you get out, then? I am sure we are being watched. There is no secret way out. If you try, they will take you straightway in the street. You will be done for.”
“Well, we can’t simply sit here and wait. There is no hiding place, you say?”
“None that they would not easily discover.”
Catherine and Jane were in the small kitchen, amid the pots and cooking utensils. Jane had been making candles and the debris of her work, wax and wicks, lay on the table before them. A helpless silence descended. Upstairs the children slept, unaware of the fate that awaited them.
“I suppose I could try to talk to Mr. Secretary.”
“What would his reaction be? Does he not back Topcliffe to the hilt? Would he not turn us over to him?”
They had been over this ground before. Catherine felt sick with dread. This should have been the happiest time of her life, days of honey with a man she loved, but he was gone and there was no way of knowing when-or if-he would return. The message delivered from him to Jane merely said he had to go away west immediately and that he would be gone a few days. Inside the message was another, hastily written on a small scrap of paper, folded and addressed to Catherine. Would that I had poetic words in me. All I can say is that you are my love and I love you. Hold firm until I return. It had made the small hairs on her neck stand and a shiver of warmth spread out across her breasts. She had folded the paper again and put it within her bodice.
Jane raised her head suddenly, as if struck by a thought. “Perhaps
…”
Chapter 41
The Guildhall was lit by a thousand candles. Guests would soon begin to arrive. Shakespeare paced the main hall. He had examined the building in detail, seeking out every entrance, every staircase, every window through which a shot or crossbow bolt might be fired. He and Boltfoot had interviewed and searched every member of staff: the footmen, the cooks, the master of ceremonies, the musicians. And he had put them on alert in the event they should see anything at all out of the usual.
He had left Drake under the protection of Diego; they would, of course, be the last to arrive. Boltfoot, meanwhile, had come ahead, trudging through the cold, blustery streets by the docks, his heavy left foot dragging behind his squat body. He was now positioned by the grand doorway where all the guests would enter wearing their finery. Shakespeare had questioned Boltfoot yet again about his confrontation with Herrick in the aftermath of the shot from the chandler’s attic in Deptford. He’d picked at his brain, desperate to find more clues about the assassin and his appearance. “Most of all, Boltfoot, would you recognize him again?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Shakespeare. I do not feel confident. I did not get close to him.”
“But you are the best hope we have. You must have some kind of impression. Use your instinct, Boltfoot. Look at the men’s faces carefully. We know Herrick is clean-shaven and that he is tall. Study any such men closely. Maybe he has stuck a false beard to his face or disguised his height by walking with a stoop. If you have any doubt about someone, however small, take no chances. Stop them and search them. This Herrick will come; it is his last chance.”
Shakespeare himself had borrowed a suit of clothes from the butler at Buckland Abbey. It enabled him to move at ease among the throng as people arrived; as a mere serving man he would attract no comment.
The hall was high-ceilinged with fine pargeting and great colored windows, but it was not big and the guests would quickly fill it. As the evening wore on, and the claret and malmsey flowed, it would become increasingly difficult to spot who was coming in or going out, who was bearing arms or advancing on Drake. In such a crush of
