“Very well,” he said. “I will come with you. But give me a few minutes to arrange my lesson and let my wife know where I am going.”
As he spoke the words, he experienced a sense of dread; the battle with Catherine was far from done.
Chapter 3
R UMSEY BLADE, A SMALL MAN WITH A PINCHED, unlovable face and thinning hair, was not happy about taking on Shakespeare’s lesson. He was in the yard, swishing his birch cane in preparation for flogging Pimlock, who was awaiting his punishment, hose about his knees and bent forward over the low wall where Shakespeare had recently been sitting.
“I am called away on urgent business, Mr. Blade. You will take my lesson.”
Blade frowned. “Indeed, Master Shakespeare?”
“Indeed, Mr. Blade.”
“Well, I cannot allow you to make a habit of such things. It is a bad example to the boys when masters fail to keep to the roster.”
Shakespeare did not have time to argue. “Mr. Blade, you are forgetting who is the high master here, to speak to me thus.” He looked at the boy. “And I would suggest you go easy with Pimlock.”
“Would you so, Mr. Shakespeare? And what use do you think a flogging would be if it did not draw blood?”
“It is of little or no use, whether blood be drawn or not.”
“At Winchester, Friday was always flogging day and a failure to stripe them with blood was considered not at all acceptable. Do you consider yourself superior to Winchester, sir?”
“Good-day, Mr. Blade.”
As Shakespeare turned away, Blade went rigid. His birchrod ceased swishing. “And have you discussed this matter with the bishop? He will not be happy with such a lax attitude to discipline and the good governance of boys.”
Shakespeare walked away.
McGunn and Slyguff were waiting for him in Dowgate, mounted on their horses. Boltfoot held the old gray mare, saddled and ready. Out here, in the full blaze of the late morning sun, the heat of the day hit Shakespeare like the blaze of a Smithfield pyre. He swung up into the saddle, then pulled his cap down on his head to shield his brow and neck. McGunn had already removed his ruff and opened the front of his fine doublet in an attempt to cool off.
“Let’s ride,” McGunn said.
Fragrant summer flowers and herbs-lavender, rosemary, bay, and a hundred other species-grew in profusion in the city’s many gardens, yet they did little to counter the overpowering stench of the dung-and-slop-strewn roads as Shakespeare and his companions trotted their horses slowly along Thames Street, then up to the city wall. Rats scurried brazenly, picking at the discarded bones from kitchens. Kites circled overhead or perched on walls, feeding at will from the bodies of slaughtered cats. “Makes you long for the fresh air of the countryside, does it not, Mr. Shakespeare?” McGunn said. “They say the plague will come hard this year.”
Shakespeare nodded. He had already wondered whether they should not close the school while summer lasted and head for Warwickshire to escape the pestilence. It would be good to visit his family. It might also be good for the health of his marriage.
At Ludgate a team of dog-catchers was rounding up strays to slit their throats, a sure sign that the city aldermen were worried about the possibility of the sickness blowing up into a general plague. It was a terrifying thought.
All along the way, beggars and rag-clad doxies stretched out thin, bony hands and stumps, hoping in vain for coins from those driving the heavy midday traffic of farm wagons and timber carts. It was a dismal sight, a sign of what England was coming to as crops failed and the demands of the war chest ate into treasury funds. As they approached Essex House, Shakespeare saw a group of a dozen or so vagabonds surrounding the open gateway. McGunn stopped by them and handed out alms liberally, for which many of them thanked him by name and doffed their caps. “They may only be beggars, but they are
Essex House stood on a large plot of land between the Thames and the Strand. Its gardens swept down to the riverbank, where there was a high wall with a gated opening to some water-steps, a landing stage for boats and barges.
Shakespeare and his companions dismounted in the forecourt under the watchful eye of a troop of halberdiers, their axe-pike lances held stock-still at their sides. The house was a hive of bees, so energetic were the comings and goings. An ostler quickly came forth and took their horses. “This is the Essex hovel, Mr. Shakespeare, how do you think it?” McGunn asked, standing back to admire the enormous stone-built house.
Shakespeare looked up at its towering frontage.
“Forty-two chambers, one hundred and sixty servants and retainers, but day-by-day you will find twice that number and more entering and leaving. Kitchens large enough to cook a feast fit for a monarch and a banqueting house great enough to entertain one. All built by his mother’s late husband, the Earl of Leicester.” McGunn strode toward the steps to the main doorway, his bull neck seeming to lead the way with the rest of him following. A halberdier stood either side of the doorway, shoulders back and unmoving. They clearly knew McGunn well, for he was not required to ask leave to pass. “Let us go in. You will be meeting my lord of Essex in the Picture Gallery.”
Essex stood in the middle of the high-ceilinged, intricately plastered gallery. To his right, casting him in a half- shade that accentuated his fine features, were four south-facing windows that stretched almost the full depth of the walls. The room was bathed in brilliant light by the high midday sun, and the windows were opened at every available casement to allow in what breeze was to be had.
The Earl looked magnificent. He stood tall in a rich costume of white silk and mother-of-pearl, his curled hair combed back from his wide forehead, his full-length red beard tumbling over his ruff. He had a slight upward tilt to his chin, his gaze fixed on a small volume that he held at arm’s length in his left hand as if he were a man of letters, not war. Lest anyone forget his military reputation, however, his right hand nonchalantly cupped the hilt of his ceremonial sword.
All around him the room was hung with portraits: Essex in armor with wheel-lock, sword, and poniard; his beautiful mother, Lettice Knollys, in a baudekin gown of bejeweled glory; Essex’s sisters, Dorothy and Penelope, reckoned by many to be the match of their mother in beauty… and in wildness of spirit; his father, the late Walter Devereux, first Earl of Essex, who died a mysterious death in Ireland, some said of poisoning; Lettice’s new husband, Sir Christopher Blount, a handsome man with what John Shakespeare took to be an untrustworthy eye; and dominating them all, Essex’s late stepfather, Leicester, the man who first won Queen Elizabeth’s heart but betrayed her by marrying Lettice (and, some said, was guilty of poisoning her husband, Walter, in order to do so).
It occurred to Shakespeare that this was the most formidable family of the age, a clan to match the Tudors themselves in power and majesty. Leicester, in particular, seemed to survey the scene from his portrait with supreme contempt.
A few yards in front of Essex stood a painter at his easel, paint-loaded brush in hand. Essex’s eyes rose languidly from his book and drifted to Shakespeare and McGunn. He nodded to the painter, who wiped his brush on a rag and put it down on a coffer beside him, where he had his pigments and oils and other tools of his craft, then stood to one side.
Essex closed his book and stepped forward, his posture slumping slightly as he did so, making him now appear to have the ungainly stoop so often associated with extremely tall men.
McGunn, whose man Slyguff had remained outside the door, ambled forward, grinning. “My lord…”
Essex smiled back and clasped him like an old friend. “You are well met, Mr. McGunn.”
McGunn turned toward Shakespeare, then swept his arm to introduce the guest. “And this is Mr. Shakespeare, whom you asked me to find.”
Shakespeare bowed to him in deference. “It is an honor to meet you, my lord.”
