Shakespeare sank to his knees before the body of his servant. He wanted to weep for him, for he had been a good man. A quiet man, but stout and loyal. He had given five years of dutiful service without a word of complaint. Shakespeare put his hands together, closed his eyes, and said the Lord’s Prayer.
He touched Jack Butler’s cold face and rose again to his feet. What was McGunn’s true purpose in all this? Shakespeare did not believe for a moment that McGunn was protecting the Earl of Essex. The Irishman looked out for one man alone-himself.
He walked out to the stables. The groom was there. Shakespeare was in no mood for explanations. “Get the constable here straightway, Sidesman.”
“Yes, Master Shakespeare.” Perkin Sidesman scurried away. Shakespeare went back to the school. He found a blanket and put it over Butler’s body, then went to collect his court clothes and some gold coin. By the time he returned to the yard, the constable was there. The groom held back.
Shakespeare showed the body to the law officer. “Inform the sheriff and the coroner and get this body to the Searcher of the Dead at St. Paul’s. Is that clear?”
The constable, a dullard with thin hair and a distended belly, looked doubtful.
“He has been murdered, Constable. His name is Jack Butler. He has been murdered in exactly the same manner as at least two other men. Tell the searcher John Shakespeare sent you and he will explain all you need to know. Tell him a name: McGunn. Charlie McGunn. If he can be found, arrest him and hold him for questioning. He is a dangerous man. He has an accomplice, known only as Slyguff. Take him, too, and hold him.”
Shakespeare could have added that a good place to start the hunt for the two men was Essex House in the Strand, but clearly no law officer in the land would dare ask for a warrant to enter the Earl’s premises. In the back of his mind, he realized this was a matter he would have to deal with himself. No one else would bring these two men to justice.
He turned to the groom. “What did you see, Sidesman?”
“Nothing, Master Shakespeare, nothing at all.”
Shakespeare was sure he was lying, but there was no time now to pursue it. “We will talk in due course,” he said coldly. “I could have you in custody this very day, for I believe you may have information that will prove useful to a prosecution, but I fear the horses would not get fed and watered. Stay here. Help the constable, tell the sheriff all you know, and I will see you presently. Do this and I pledge that your work here will be safe.”
Sidesman bowed his head. “Thank you, Master Shakespeare.”
“Now feed and water the mare, for this day I must ride harder and faster than I have ever ridden.”
A T TEN IN THE MORNING, a reluctant Boltfoot Cooper went to the hospital chapel with the other walking- wounded patients. Sister Bridget, the nurse, had told him he must do this if he was to retrieve his weapons and purse from the hospitaller.
The preacher delivered a hectoring tirade on the price that man must pay for his manifold sins-and that price was sickness. Boltfoot listened but did not hear, for his mind was elsewhere. He wanted to be back in Long Southwark in case the unknown woman came to ask after him again.
As they left the chapel, Sister Bridget turned to him with angry eyes. “He was saying the people of London have brought the plague on themselves, yet I know of good people who have fallen ill and died of it-godly people who never did harm to any man and kept true to His commandments. Why should He scourge the godly and ungodly alike?”
Boltfoot grunted in agreement. The fate of Jane and their unborn child was much on his mind. He was sure she, Catherine, and the children would have left London and the plague far behind by now, but he was anxious for news.
“It gets harder day by day,” the nurse continued. “Every day we turn away more people who have the plague and send them on to the Lock Hospital in Kent Street. I cannot believe they are all the worst of sinners.” She shook her head sadly. “It is pitiful to see their faces, for they know that the Lock Hospital is a sentence of death. Few come from there alive.”
Although Boltfoot’s head was still swathed in bandages, he was in less pain and he had regained much of his strength from the beef, bread, and copious ale the nurse had brought him.
“Will you take me to the hospitaller now, Sister?”
“Mr. Cooper, I should be setting you to doing some carpentry today. That is the rule for those not confined to bed. The women must launder as drudges and the men must help with their craft.” She gave him one of her motherly looks, but nonetheless led the way to the hospitaller’s office.
The hospitaller was a solemn man of advanced years and heard Boltfoot out. “Indeed, Mr. Cooper,” he said. “A most unlikely tale if I might say so.” But he handed Boltfoot back his weapons, his powder horn, and his pouch of balls.
Boltfoot examined them carefully. They were undamaged. He fixed his belt and cutlass about his middle, then slung his caliver over his back. Though the weapons were heavy and he was still weak, it felt good to be armed once again. He looked in his purse for gold. He had two marks and a few pence. He offered them to the hospitaller, who waved them away.
“I will not leave you impoverished, Mr. Cooper. Return with money for us when you have some to spare. All gifts are gratefully received from those who can afford it.”
Boltfoot bowed. “Thank you, Master Hospitaller. I believe you and your establishment have saved my life. Indeed, I know it to be true.”
With the nurse by his side, he walked out through the front gate into Long Southwark, where she bade him farewell with a shake of the hand. The gateway was narrow and clogged with the stalls of butchers and other market men. The noise and stench of the place brought Boltfoot back to the jarring reality of city life after the tranquility of the hospital. He dragged his foot behind him across the dusty road and waited in a doorway. It was, he realized, near to the spot where he had been bludgeoned. The question was, would the woman who sought him come by here this day on her way to St. Thomas’s?
He did not have to wait long for an answer. The fair young woman from the house in Bank End, the home of Davy Kerk, arrived carrying a basket of bread.
Boltfoot followed her as she walked around to the back gate on St. Thomas’s Street, where patients were usually admitted to the hospital. He observed her as she spoke to the gatekeeper. The man shook his head and she turned away, disappointed, and made her way back in the direction of the river and westward toward her home.
Boltfoot’s energy was low. His clubfoot slowed him more than usual. He was out of breath and his head throbbed. The woman walked briskly and it was all he could do to trail her.
He battled to go faster and had just managed to get close behind her when she reached her door. She turned, and came face-to-face with him. She recoiled and he put a hand to her mouth, stifling her cry.
“Open the door,” he ordered, taking his hand away from her face.
She hesitated, then removed a key from the bread basket and pushed it into the lock.
Before the lock could be turned and the latch lifted, Boltfoot heard a sound from within-the sound of a groan- followed by a thud, a sharp cry, another thud, and a muffled scream. He stayed the woman’s hand, then unslung the caliver from his back and quickly primed it with powder and ball. His fingers were steady and practiced. If, in the heat of battle, a man could not pour powder without spilling it, he was of no use to his captain-general or his copesmates. Boltfoot’s hands had never trembled in conflict, however hot the fire.
With a nod, he signaled the woman to open the door, slowly. She was clearly frightened, but she did as bidden.
Boltfoot went in first, the light wheel-lock musket in front of him with its ornate octagonal muzzle pointing deep into the room. His cutlass swung at his hip, ready to be drawn in a second.
At the far end of the room, in a doorway, he saw the shadow of a figure, the eyes glinting at him from the gloom. For a moment, it seemed as if the figure would spring to attack, but then the eyes lighted on Boltfoot’s deadly firearm and the man vanished.
In the center of the front room, draped over the table where the woman had been plucking a fowl when last Boltfoot had been here, was a body, dead but not yet still. The legs and arms dangled over the edges of the flat surface, twitching in their death throes.
