“Come. Let us go to my solar. We will be more comfortable.”
They proceeded to the room where Shakespeare most liked to work. Through the west window he saw that the sun was low in the sky. Lady Le Neve, so unlike Catherine in her looks and manner, sat on a settle, and he stood by the cold hearth.
“We are impoverished because my husband likes to gamble,” she said. “He plays cent, primero, and tables. He will hazard money on the fighting skills of a cock or the speed of a horse. He plays with my lord of Essex’s friends: Southampton, Rutland, Danvers, Gelli Meyrick, his brother-in-arms Roger Williams. They all wager more money than is sensible, huge sums. And Sir Toby is the maddest of them all, for his inheritance was poor.”
“And McGunn?” Shakespeare persisted, eager to get to the point, the name.
“Essex told my husband that if ever he needed money, McGunn was the man. There could be no higher recommendation than that. Sir Toby is intensely loyal; he comes from a long feudal line and regards Essex as his liege lord.”
“And why, pray, does Essex keep the company of a man like McGunn?”
Cordelia’s mouth was set. “Gold. Essex lives like a sultan of Turkey, with his vast houses, his legions of retainers, his army of knights all liveried in tangerine. Where does he find the money to maintain these men at his command? The Queen keeps him stretched like a bowstring. McGunn keeps Essex afloat, for he has such a burden of debt, he could sink to the depths of the northern seas.”
“And what does McGunn get in return?”
“Power, Mr. Shakespeare. Control. Overlordship. The same as he exercised over us. But how would I or anyone else know what desires lie hidden in the cold, dark shadows of Charlie McGunn’s mind? Watch his impudent boldness with great men-you would not think that Essex was the premier Earl and that McGunn was the lowly kern from the boglands of Ireland. You would think McGunn the chief of the two.”
“And how has McGunn come into so much treasure, Lady Le Neve?”
“Usury, violence, debauchery. He is as cold-blooded as a snake. He would kill and his heart would beat no faster.”
“You said you had seen such men before?”
She stood up abruptly. “I have said enough.” She turned to go. The sun was close to the roofs toward the west of the city. The sky was darkening.
Shakespeare put up his hand. “No. I want the name.”
“It is late. I should not have come.”
“You say you are scared. Well, you are safe here. You cannot ride back alone to Wanstead this evening.”
“Do you think I have not been out alone in the darkest of nights?” She laughed.
“There is The Swan nearby.” He closed his eyes. “Or there is this house. There are empty beds this night. You may make use of one, but you will give me the information I require.”
Her eyes, unabashed, met his. “Yes,” she said. “I will tell you the killer’s name.” She sat down again.
“L ET ME TELL YOU my story, if you have the stomach for it. I am of the notorious Kett family from Norwich in Norfolk. Have you heard of us, Mr. Shakespeare?”
“Indeed.”
“It is a name tainted with treason, but I wear it with pride. Robert Kett was my grandfather and a landowner of wealth. Our family lived well, with landholdings around Norwich and Wymondham. My grandfather’s rebellion, though he would not have called it such, ended all that. When he was hanged in chains from the battlements of Blanche Fleur, all his lands were attainted and given by King Edward to Lord Audley, his captor. My father and his brothers, who had thought they would inherit lands, were brought to impoverishment.”
Shakespeare refilled their goblets.
“By the time I was born in the first year of Her Majesty’s reign, we lived in a small cottage not far from Wymondham. My father worked for Audley’s estate as a common farmhand, a serf, and my mother took in weaver’s work. It was a modest enough life, but we had enough to eat and my parents ensured we were all educated in reading and some writing. They taught us, too, that we were better than the place to which we had been brought by fate. There were three of us, all girls, and I was the eldest. The others in the village thought we were above ourselves; they did not like to see maidens with books and mocked us for it. At the age of eight, we had to work on the farm, milking, churning, reaping, feeding the stock, and collecting the eggs. Then, when I was twelve, we were brought yet lower.” She stopped for a moment, unable to find a voice to speak. “Forgive me, Mr. Shakespeare.”
“Drink a little wine.”
“The sickness came. The sweat. It pains me grievously to recall it, even now. It took Mother and Father and my youngest sister, all in the space of a fortnight. That left just Matilda and me. We had no help from our neighbors. Even the almoner called me a dirty maunderer, spat in my face, and said he would not give me so much as a farthing.”
“So what did you do?”
“We took the road to London, as I thought. But it was no such thing. We joined a band of vagabonds for protection and became runagates ourselves. That is no life. You can have no idea of the cold, Mr. Shakespeare. In midwinter the frost bites so deep that the elders and babes amongst us froze where they slept.” She held a hand to her bare throat, as if overcome by the recollection. “There were men there, and women, too, that would kill for half a loaf. I saw them fight until the blood ran freely into the mud over the ownership of a dead hare. We scavenged for anything and everything. Nettles, insects, all the fruits of the forest and hedgerow, cats and dogs and rats, too. Whatever we could find. I don’t doubt there were some that gnawed on human flesh. There were fifty of us in our roving camp and we were unwelcome wherever we went. If we went near towns, the men would drive us away with whips and mastiffs. If the headborough or foreign officer caught a vagabond man, he would be accused of every crime committed within the year and be hanged that day without trial. If they could catch a dell, they would treat her no better than a whore, even though she might be a maiden. And we were flogged without mercy. I have the stripes still.”
“I believe you.”
“We stayed in the open air. But there was always a hamlet nearby, so they would gather all the farmhands to drive us away. Some were Christian folk, a few, and would give us loaves and ale, but they always told us we must be on our way after our repast. There was no money to be had and we slept beneath hedgerows or in byres if we could.”
“How long were you on the road?”
“Two years. Two years that aged me a hundred. I have not even told you the worst.” Her voice broke again. She tried to regain her composure. Tears streamed down her cheeks, yet she did not sob. “My sister…”
“You do not need to tell me this.”
“My little sister, Mr. Shakespeare. Poor Matilda. Eleven years. They took her in the night.”
“The vagabonds?”
“No. Men from a town. It was in the shire of Cambridge. I do not even know the name of the town. They came in the night while we slept. They came with bats and poleaxes and torches to light the way for their foul designs. We rose from our slumber and gathered our few belongings and ran and ran, as we had done many times before. But there was a fog and the night was dark, and I lost Matilda. I lost her, then heard her voice cry out. I think she had stumbled and fallen and the men were on her like ravening animals. I ran in the direction of her voice, but I became tangled in thorns and could not find a path. In the distance, growing fainter, I heard her as they carried her away. She was pleading, screaming, ‘No, please no, in God’s name no.’ Nothing else, just that, over and over. And I could not get to her. We found her body in the morning.”
“I am so sorry.”
She wiped the tears from her face, but still they came. “They had taken all her clothes and left her naked. She was impaled on the prongs of a dung fork. Its handle was buried into the earth like a fence pole, and she was on the other end, five feet off the ground, face-down. One of the two prongs had pierced her breastbone, the other her belly. It was clear to one and all how they had used her before killing her.” She closed her eyes.
Shakespeare watched her in silence. There was nothing to say.
“There,” she said at last, looking up. “That is my story. It is the first time I have told it, Mr. Shakespeare. It is how I know about men like Charlie McGunn. It is why I know that the slavering and pawing of an evil-smelling
