sweating bodies, a poniard, even a wheel-lock pistol, could all too easily be concealed.
They began arriving at seven of the clock, just as the church bells chimed nearby. Shakespeare took a deep breath. “This is it, Boltfoot. We know he will be here and that he has no fear. The way he walked into Buckland Abbey proved that. If only Lady Drake could stay by the door with you, for she must recognize him better than anyone; she has taken a cup of wine with him in her own withdrawing room. But her thoughts and attention will most certainly be occupied elsewhere.”
Boltfoot looked unimpressed. He was convinced that Drake was immortal, that he had signed some pact with the Devil. He had seen him exchange fire with the finest soldiers of Spain, brave arrows and spears flung at him by native peoples the very globe over, walk tall and strong when all others were falling down with sickness in mid- ocean. Whatever happened, he never shed his glow of invincibility; he was untouchable. Could a mere mercenary, a mortal with a wheel-lock sent by Philip of Spain, do him any harm? Boltfoot rather thought not.
The guests wore glittering clothes, studded with dazzling gemstones. This was not the royal court with its plethora of exquisitely cut gowns, but the clothes were costly nonetheless. Plymouth was a wealthy port. After London, it was the hub of England’s trade with the world. Here lived hard, unsentimental men-Hawkins, Drake, and their extensive families, all cousins with one another-who plundered Spanish treasure, who stole men and women from their beds in western Africa and sold them as slave labor in the Indies, who found spices and cloth and jewels from the earth’s most far-flung shores to sell in the capitals of Europe. Their wealth, however ill-gotten, shone as gaudily as the night sky in this hall. Shake speare doubted that there was a single gemstone in the hall paid for other than in blood.
The tables, formed in a great U shape, were bedecked with candles and silver plate. The guests all thronged in the center of the hall, where, after feasting, there would be dancing. In a corner, the musicians played the songs of old England, passed down through Devon’s generations for hundreds of years. This was not a time for mournful ballads.
Drake and his lady arrived last, to thunderous applause. He wore a saffron yellow doublet topped by an enormous ruff of fine lace and a cape at his shoulder. The Vice Admiral bowed with a sweep of his cape, and Lady Drake, in her finest blue velvet and cloth of gold gown, curtsied with a radiant smile. They were accompanied by Diego. Drake caught sight of Shakespeare in his butler’s livery. “Fetch me a cup of brandy, my man,” he said, laughing. He and his wife walked sedately to their seats at the head of the main table, acknowledging the applause and cheering of the guests every inch of the way. He vaulted onto the table with the agility of a man half his forty- six years, puffed out his broad chest, and clapped his hands.
The crowd fell silent. Drake stood, legs asunder, hands on hips, as if he were on the deck of a royal galleon with a fierce northeasterly in his gray-red hair. His eyes shone. He had his audience, his people, where he wanted them: in the very palm of his hand.
“Welcome, welcome one and all. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow our fleet sets sail into the teeth of the Spaniard’s jaws, where we shall blow out his brains and tear his heart from his cowering chest. Let Philip and Santa Cruz tremble with fear, for I will discover them, mewling in their lair, and turn their great towering ships to matchwood. But first let me tell you a little of the ways of this craven prince: he has sent a Fleming for to kill me; a man of dishonor who would kill by stealth for he is afraid to stand in open combat. I am told he will be here tonight. Well, Mr. Fleming, here I am! Draw your pistol, take aim, and fire.” Drake thumped his hand against his chest. “Here is my heart. Shoot it to death, by God’s faith.”
He stood back and looked around the room. The silence was absolute. All eyes were on the Vice Admiral. He cupped his ear with his hand. “Hark, do I hear a pistol being cocked? Mind you come closer. We don’t want you to miss now, as you did once before.”
An explosion tore the silence. The guests shrieked and ducked down as one, an instinctive reaction to the force of the blast. All eyes turned to the back of the hall, where a man stood holding a smoking wheel-lock. Then everyone looked back at Drake. He stood where he had before, unflinching, hands on hips even more aggressively, chest pushed out until it might seem he would burst his doublet, his face creased into a scornful grin.
Shakespeare pushed his way through the throng toward the gunman. He was about to leap on him when he stopped in his tracks. The gunman, too, was grinning. His red hair and shoulders were covered in the plaster that had fallen from the ceiling, where he had loosed the ball from his pistol. He looked back at Drake, who was laughing loud.
“’Tis my little brother Thomas, Mr. Shakespeare. He has let off his pop-pop into the ceiling. Would you take him away and lock him up in Plymouth gaol?”
Shakespeare shook his head in dismay. By now the whole room was laughing with gusto until the walls echoed.
Drake clapped his hands again. “Forgive me, Mr. Shakespeare. It was a jest we could not resist. Now let us say grace and give thanks to the Lord for the fare we are about to receive.” He clambered down from the table and called on the Bishop to lead them in prayer.
The banquet proceeded in disorderly fashion. The din of laughter and conversation was as loud as a score of anvils being hammered. Shakespeare was worried. He offered to taste Drake’s food for poison, but Drake would have none of it. Worse, if the killer had been anywhere in the vicinity when Thomas Drake shot his pistol, he could well have found his way into the hall under cover of the confusion; all the plans to search and examine those coming in could have gone up in smoke.
As the evening grew ever more wild, weapons were produced and mock sword fights staged along the center of the tables. Drunken guests kicked food and silver and candles around like so many pirates. Drake clapped his hands whenever he felt it was time to tell another story. At one stage he called for silence and demanded prayers for his cousin John, a fellow sea captain, captured by natives and then by the Spanish on the River Plate. “Remember, while we eat and drink, my cousin molders in some Spanish hole in Peru. If he could hear me now, I would say ‘Keep strong, John! Keep the faith and spit on their saints and relics!’”
The dancing began. Riotous voltas and galliards; not for these revelers the sedate elegance of the pavane. The men threw their ladies high into the air, and occasionally dropped them, sprawling in a drunken heap.
Diego came up and slapped Shakespeare on the back. “I am sorry about Sir Francis’s little jest. He insisted on it.”
“This is folly, Diego. Drake jests, but this man, this Fleming, will come tonight. He may be waiting in the shadows outside; he may be here already inside. But I tell you, I know he has ridden here and he believes this to be his last chance. I think he is without fear for his own life.”
A drunken couple staggered into Shakespeare. The man wore the mayor’s chain of office and had his hand clasped to the woman’s breast and his mouth at her neck; she had her hand held firm at the front of his breeches. Shakespeare pushed the amorous couple on their way, stumbling around the room in their curious impression of a dance. “Good to see him taking care of corporation business,” Shakespeare told Diego. “I fear Mr. Secretary would not approve of any of this.”
“Definitely not. But Mr. Secretary does not stand on the deck of a warship driving it straight into the guns of the enemy,” Diego replied. “They are enjoying life while it lasts, John. Tomorrow we set sail. This may be the last time you see any of us.”
“This is certain fine, Diego, so long as you all do set sail on the morrow. Your Vice Admiral included.”
The banquet was rapidly descending into a free-for-all. Beautifully prepared food was flung across the tables; ale was drunk from pitchers so that it ran from the mouths of men and women, down the sides of their jowls and onto their fine clothes. Shakespeare watched in despair. All he could do now was stay close to Drake and scour the room for anything untoward, while Diego and Boltfoot watched the doors. Yet men and women were slipping in and out all the time.
Drake broke off from a heated conversation with young Richard Hawkins, son of his old friend John Hawkins. “Enjoying yourself, Mr. Shakespeare? Your brow seems uncommon furrowed tonight.” He turned to his wife. “What say you, my lady?”
“I would say, Sir Francis, that you should be thankful for the care that Mr. Shakespeare is taking concerning the preservation of your life. I think you owe him better manners, sir!”
“Hah! Roundly told off. I would rather be cut at by a Spaniard’s halberd than feel the edge of a woman’s tongue.”
Someone shouted “Fire!” It was a word to drive fear into the hearts of stout men. Even those stumbling about with an excess of wine stopped and held still. “Fire! There is a fire!” another voice shouted. Then a roar went
