give up his vital organs. He looked disconsolately at the few strands of leaf that were left him. “Here.” He handed over the tobacco. “That’s best verinshe, that is, so this had better be good.”
The big mariner sniffed at it and his eyes brightened. He was about to pat some of it into his walnut-shell pipe, but Boltfoot stayed his hand. “You can smoke it when you’ve spoken-if I like what you say.”
“As you will. But none of this comes back to me if he’s unhappy. It’s dangerous business telling stuff like this. Don’t want anyone thinking I’ve got a loose tongue, not in days like these.”
“You’ve got the sotweed. Get on with it.”
The seafarer’s eyes flickered this way and that. Boltfoot could understand his fears; he had, himself, worried that there was something more to this, something sinister, and had done his utmost to avoid being followed or observed as he journeyed between these seamen’s haunts.
The man with the information sniffed again at the tobacco. “Very well,” he said. “His name was Davy. I recall him from the end of the year the Scots Queen was beheaded when all the yards and docks were getting in a frenzy about the Spanish fleet they said was coming. There was a taproom out at Blackwall, and he was in there telling the whole world of that voyage when they put them poor souls down in the New World. We was all giving him ale to keep him talking with his tales of warlike savages and mad-prattling Puritans. He was a caskwright, like you, Mr. Cooper.”
“What use is any of this to me? That was five years ago.”
“That’s the point. I saw him a few weeks since in Gully Hole and I did hail him. But it was as if he was deaf, for he just hurried on and paid me no heed.”
“How will that help me find him?”
“Because I saw where he came from, Mr. Cooper. And I reckon he’ll go back there again, being as how he’s a cooper like you and he was wearing his workman’s belly-cheat.” He patted a pinch of tobacco down hard into the walnut shell, put the straw sticking from it into the side of his mouth, begged a lighted taper from the landlord, and inhaled deeply of the fragrant smoke. He closed his eyes and sighed with the luxury of it. “Ah, that’ll keep King Pest at bay,” he said, basking in the pleasure.
“Well?” Boltfoot demanded irritably.
The man held out his pipe and his fellows all looked at it appreciatively, hoping to savor some of it themselves. At last the smoker grinned. “He came from Hogsden Trent’s. That’s where I saw him come from, Hogsden Trent’s.”
Chapter 14
S HAKESPEARE’S PURSUER, WHO WAS ON FOOT, WORE a dun-colored cowhide jerkin, black woolen breeches, and gray hose. There was nothing to distinguish him from any other working man, but Shakespeare had not lost his skill in spotting the one who wished not to be noticed.
He kicked his gray mare into a trot and soon saw the pursuer floundering behind him, walking fast, occasionally breaking into a run, but losing ground the whole time. At last he felt sure he was in the clear and turned westward through New Gate, then along the Strand, past Westminster and out into open country toward the little village of Chelsea. He stopped and looked about him. The road was busy with drays and carts and postriders.
He rode on a little further, then reined in some distance short of Shrewsbury House, tethering his horse to a sycamore on a piece of common land. He walked the last quarter mile to the north side of the building.
Shrewsbury House was an opulent, brick-built manor, facing the Thames on its southern side. Most visitors arrived by river at the landing stage, but Shakespeare went to the postern gate, where he was met by a guard.
“I would speak with the Countess of Shrewsbury.”
“Are you expected, sir?”
“No. But say I am sent by Sir Robert Cecil with a message which I must convey to her in person.”
“And your name, sir?”
“Marvell,” he said, giving his wife’s birth name. “John Marvell.”
“Please wait here.”
The guard returned in a few minutes and led Shakespeare into a magnificent hall, adorned with shields and splendid tapestries, many threaded with gold and silver. It well befitted the second most wealthy woman in the land. A liveried footman appeared and took over Shakespeare’s care from the guard, leading him through to another chamber.
Cecil had described Bess of Hardwick as a hard woman. From all he had heard, Shakespeare certainly knew her to be formidable: married four times, mother of eight children of whom five survived, grandmother to a host of well-bred grandchildren, sometime companion of the captive Mary Queen of Scots when her late husband, the Earl of Shrewsbury, was her keeper, and good friend of Elizabeth herself.
In the flesh, Bess of Hardwick did not disappoint. She was examining bolts of cloth laid out on the floor in front of her by a richly clad mercer and his three assistants. There were great lengths of taffeta and black damask, satins and silks. A tailor and haberdasher stood close by, with their own assistants, beside a table laden with quantities of intricate white and black lace, gauze, black velvet, and cambric.
She looked up at Shakespeare’s entrance and smiled warmly.
“Mr. Marvell? I don’t think I know you.”
Shakespeare bowed. “I am sent on an errand from Sir Robert Cecil, my lady. It is a matter of some urgency.” He glanced at the tradesmen. “May we speak alone?”
Bess nodded to the mercer and haberdasher and their assistants. “Gentlemen, if you would. And think on those prices I have offered, for they are fair.”
“My lady,” one of the merchants pleaded, “you will ruin us.”
“I will go no higher. Take it or leave it.”
They all bowed low and hurried from the room.
The Countess was not tall, neither was she a beauty, though she was very slender and healthy for an old woman of nearly sixty-five-six years senior to the Queen. She was strikingly dressed in black velvet and a broad ruff and wore a black coif atop her still-golden hair. Long strings of perfect pearls adorned her neck, cascading down to her narrow waist.
“This is all very secretive, Mr. Marvell. Please proceed.”
“It is a delicate matter, my lady. It concerns your granddaughter, the lady Arbella.”
“Is Sir Robert still worried about Arbella?” Bess’s attentive eyes revealed her intelligence as she spoke. “I do think he imagines I neglect my duties as guardian.”
“Indeed, I am sure he does not, my lady. He speaks most highly of your loving care for her upbringing and education.”
“But he fears Spanish plots. He thinks King Philip will send his mercenaries to spirit her away and make an Infanta of her and use her as a tool to steal the crown of England.”
“My lady, that
“Well, if that is what Sir Robert desires, then I shall do so. I hold Sir Robert in the highest esteem. We shall leave for Hardwick at the earliest opportunity.”
“Might I tell him how soon that will be?”
Bess smiled her warm smile once more, but Shakespeare thought he detected a hint of irritation. She was not one to be commanded.
“Well, let me think,” she said. “I have much to pack up and take with me-perhaps twenty wagonloads. I have two hundred and thirty household staff who must be provisioned for the long journey. There are clothes, linen, livestock, hangings and wondrous new paintings and tapestries to transport. It cannot be done in a midnight flit, if that is what you mean, Mr. Marvell.”
“Forgive me. I did not intend to discomfit you. I asked only that I might report back to Sir Robert.”
“Let us say two weeks, then. Three weeks at the most. Would that suit the next Principal Secretary?”
