Revenger

Was Essex there, too? If Essex was gone on the progress, he would have to follow straightway to keep him observed. Nothing-not lost colonists nor murders-could come before that.

As the gilt prow of the royal barge cut smoothly through the water, the Queen waved to her people. Crowds had massed along the riverside to wave back to her. There were shouts and cheers, too, from mariners, dockers, shipworkers, and fishermen aboard their little scutes. Hats were thrown into the air.

The whole river was alive with color, cheering, music, and the noise and smoke of exploding gunpowder. All the bells of London and Southwark rang with frenzied joy, as if knowing that this would be the last time for many months that they would toll; after this day they would be silenced as a mark of respect to the victims of the plague. It was, thought Shakespeare, the unacknowledged specter that hung like a limp black flag over this pomp and pageant.

Behind the royal barge came a host of other vessels. Fireworks flew from some; gunfire erupted from muskets and cannons in others. And more drums beat out their frantic noise. Courtiers, retainers, clergy, officers of state, the royal guard-all were part of the display. One man, however, was certainly not there: the man Shakespeare wished to see this morning. The man behind the Roanoke colony, a man disgraced and under arrest for an altogether separate matter. His crime? Marriage without the Queen’s permission.

I N HIS CELL, high in the impregnable battlements of the Tower, Sir Walter Ralegh watched the royal progress along the river in full and awful awareness of his fall from grace. He was shunned by his Gloriana, his soul’s heart, his joy, his bitch Queen, the mother cow from whose teats all the treasures of the world flowed into his ever-gaping maw.

This prison was now Ralegh’s home. He had committed the crime of secretly marrying Bess Throckmorton, one of the Queen’s maids of honor, and was paying the price. Bess was here in the Tower, too, though they were separated. Their new-born child, a son called Damerei, was elsewhere with a wet nurse.

In a fit of dramatic pique worthy of some playhouse production, Ralegh had set upon his keeper, demanding a boat and oars to row himself to the Queen’s barge, where he might beg her forgiveness. Daggers were drawn, but the whole ill-considered act fizzled and died out like a squib dropped into the Thames.

Ralegh, so tall and handsome despite his forty years, sat despondent like some grandfather at the hearth awaiting comfortable death. He could no longer bear to look from the little window. He could not shut out the noise, though: the crowds cheering, the drums beating, the bells chiming, the great roar of gunshot. How he loved her; how he loathed her. He wished himself away from the rotten, festering court forever. He would rather live obscurely in the wild, untarnished innocence of the West Country, with his wife and their boy.

J OHN SHAKESPEARE presented himself at the gatehouse with his letter-patent signed by Essex.

“Swisser-Swatter? I wouldn’t wager on him wanting to see you, Master Shakespeare,” the guard said. “I hear tell he’s in a temper most foul and wishes death and torment to the whole world.”

“I shall take my chances.”

“As you wish. It’s your death.” The guard trundled off to make inquiries.

Shakespeare smiled. Everyone in London knew of the provenance of Sir Walter Ralegh’s nickname. He had been debauching a young lady of the court against a tree, so the tale went, and she, being maidenly, cried, “Sweet Sir Walter. No, sweet Sir Walter… sweet Sir Walter… sweet Sir Walter” until, rising to uncontrollable ecstasies of pleasure, she was heard to mumble and moan, then cry out “Swisser Swatter, Swisser Swatter!” over and over, as she clutched him to her and crumpled at the knees.

The guard reappeared. “He says he will see you, sir. He wishes to kill someone this day, so you will serve his purpose.”

“Very droll, guard.”

The guard laughed. “You think I jest, Master Shakespeare, but blood has already been shed up there in his little eagle’s nest this day. I wish you well of your visit-and if not a long life, then a painlessly quick death.”

Shakespeare was escorted up to the high cell, where he was kept waiting in a little anteroom until the keeper ushered him in.

At six foot, Ralegh was no taller than Shakespeare, yet he dominated his comfortable gaol. He filled his jewel- encrusted white satin doublet with lean muscle. His face had a natural backward tilt so that his sharp little beard thrust forward. Each finger of his hand was adorned with diamonds, and in one ear he affected a single pearl earring. At his waist was a dagger with a hilt of gems. On a settle, beneath the window, another man in rich attire sat with his feet up, lounging against a gold-threaded green bolster. He was nursing his hand, which was swathed in a bloodstained bandage. Shakespeare recognized him as the poet Arthur Gorges; clearly it had been his blood that had been shed.

Shakespeare bowed to Ralegh and glanced at Gorges in acknowledgment of his presence.

In response, Ralegh looked Shakespeare up and down as he might assess a horse. “And you are?” he said at length, in a voice dripping with languor, as if this whole day were all too much effort.

“John Shakespeare, Sir Walter. I am an agent of my lord of Essex.”

“And what, pray, does Essex want from me? Has he sent you to twist the knife in the wound, to gloat at my undoing?”

“No, Sir Walter, nothing of the kind.”

“Well, have your say, and I shall be the judge of his motive. His true motive.”

A servant appeared with a tray of small silver goblets and a silver flask and poured a healthy measure of the dry wine into three of the goblets. While the man served them, Shakespeare told of his commission to find Eleanor Dare. “And that is why I am come to you, Sir Walter,” he concluded, “for you must know more about the lost colony than any man.”

“The colony is not lost, Mr. Shakespeare,” Ralegh said emphatically. “The City of Ralegh in the colony of Virginia is a flourishing town, a splendid city to rival and better anything the Spaniard can do in the southern estates of the New World. There are great buildings there in my city-schools, government houses, a magnificent church, and markets-every bit as fine as those to be found in London itself. And yes, Mistress Dare is most certainly alive, and a fine wife to Mr. Dare, I am sure, and mother to their little daughter, Virginia, a healthy five-year-old. There is no reason to think otherwise.”

“But when Governor White and the supply ships returned to Roanoke…”

“The colonists were never meant to stay on Roanoke. They had moved. Do you know nothing of the affair?”

“Indeed, I do, Sir Walter. But there is this report of Eleanor Dare in London.”

“Lies. Lies intended to undo me. Lies intended to have my royal patent revoked. I will hear no more. If your filthy blood were not likely to befoul my cell, I would slit you open. When I am released, I shall take ships to Virginia and I shall bring back the fruits of this majestic enterprise. There will be great carracks laden with sugar, with gold, with tobacco and silver and spices and pearls. I have faith in my goodmen and women every one. I know in my heart that they are not only alive but thriving.”

“I pray you are right, Sir Walter.”

From the settle, Gorges joined the talk. “What about the man White, Walter?”

“John White is a fool and a coward. I should never have put him in command. And then to just leave the colonists like that, with no leader… but they are doubtless better off without him.”

“Where is he now?”

“Ireland. Best place for him. Land of bogs and barbarous mongrels. The savages of the New World are gentlemen by comparison. I am glad White has left. As to the rest, there is no evidence that anything untoward has become of them. I am certain they are living at peace with the savages, and soon I shall prove it to the world. That will do for the doubters and gloaters like Cecil and Essex.”

“Sir Walter, we know for certain that the colonists were no longer at Roanoke when White took the supply ships back there. So where do you think they have gone?”

“First to the Croatoans, for help to get them over that winter, then up the coast to the great bay where it was intended all along that they should go. It is there that they have built this City of Ralegh. There is no cause for doubt about this, none at all.”

Shakespeare had been sipping the sack and now finished it in one gulp. It was pointless arguing with Ralegh’s fantasy; to do so would merely bait him to violence.