cygnet and snipe, subtleties of jelly dressed as great roaring lions, oyster pies, dotterels, godwits, and every manner of songbird, marchpane meats, figs, and little sweet things from the far lands of Turkey. I really don’t know what else, Mr. Shakespeare. There were foods the like of which I have never seen. Am I not come a long way, sir?”
“Indeed, you have taken a remarkable journey, Mistress Day.”
She introduced him to Watts, who nodded in bored acknowledgment, then took advantage of Shakespeare’s presence to leave his mistress and go off in search of better entertainment.
“Have you found good rooms, Mr. Shakespeare?”
“I shall sleep beneath a hedgerow, Mistress Day.”
“Mr. Watts has procured one of the best apartments for us, here in the castle itself. Can you imagine, Starling Day will sleep in a royal castle this night? Of course, that assumes Mr. Watts allows me any sleep. But you cannot sleep beneath a hedge! There is a room with our luggage a little way from our bedchamber that would suit you well. It overlooks the main courtyard and is in a prime spot.”
“That is very gracious of you, mistress.”
“Then that is settled.”
B OLTFOOT LIMPED through the streets of London down toward the Thames and Dowgate. He had his caliver primed and loaded, slung loosely in his arms.
He slowed to a crawl, looking about him all the while as he neared the school. There was a man, in leather jerkin and leather cap, on watch, close to the main entrance. He was gazing elsewhere and did not spot Boltfoot, who immediately stepped back and went around to the rear of the house to the stables, where he found the groom, Sidesman, bringing nosebags to the horses.
Sidesman looked as if he had seen an apparition. He stood back from Boltfoot and stared at him, his gaze shifting uneasily toward the house, then back to Boltfoot and his caliver.
Boltfoot lunged forward and put the muzzle of the weapon to the groom’s throat. “Where is Jane?” he whispered in a raw, low voice. “Is she here or gone?”
“She’s gone, Mr. Cooper. With a troop of militia to the north. A place called Masham, to the family of Mistress Shakespeare, by York.”
“Someone is watching for me, yes?”
Sidesman froze and did not speak.
“Is it McGunn?” Boltfoot demanded. “Tell me, Mr. Sidesman, or die now.”
The groom’s eyes slid sideways. His body was rigid with fear. An explosion rang out and Sidesman fell, half his face ripped off by a volley of balls. Boltfoot ducked down and scrabbled on hands and knees from the stable forecourt. He looked back at the bloody pulp that had been Sidesman’s head. Something told Boltfoot the shot had hit its intended target. He, Boltfoot, was wanted alive. He was the route to Eleanor Dare.
Another shot rent the air close to Boltfoot’s body. He was up now, caliver in hand, shielded by the edge of the wall. He loosed off a shot of his own, but it was unaimed and without hope of hitting home.
Boltfoot scuttled off up Dowgate. He was not the fastest of movers at the best of times, but now he was weaker than usual. His heavy foot scraped through the dust as he ran. As he crossed over the road eastward, he stumbled in the stinking sewage kennel that ran down the center of the thoroughfare. Scrabbling clumsily to his feet, he heard the sound of running footsteps behind him. He stopped and knelt down on one knee, quickly reloading the caliver with expert speed, dropping none of the powder corns he poured from the horn that hung at his belt. McGunn was no more than thirty yards away from him, coming on fast. Boltfoot lifted the caliver and pointed its intricately engraved octagonal muzzle directly at the oncoming pursuer.
McGunn stopped and dived to the left, behind a cart.
Boltfoot cursed his luck. Too slow. He did not fire, but rose to both feet and backed away, his weapon trained on the cart. A young woman in a barley-colored dress walked by with two small children, one at each hand. When she saw Boltfoot with the weapon clutched in front of him, backing past her, she screamed and huddled down, cradling the children close to her breast. There was a puff of smoke from the side of the cart, then balls tore past Boltfoot’s ear and slammed into the brick wall of the long hall that fronted the road. Boltfoot dodged into a small alleyway at the side of the northern end building; he could hear the woman still screaming, accompanied by the wailing of her children.
He turned and lurched on down the alley into Cousin Lane, then heard another sound behind him. Looking over his left shoulder, he saw McGunn and another man, the one in the leather jerkin and cap from outside the school. They each had a pair of heavy petronel pistols, slung on straps about their chests, with one held out in front like a monstrous funnel of fire. He was hopelessly outgunned.
Boltfoot stopped in a doorway and dropped again to his knee. McGunn was the man. He lined up his caliver on McGunn. They were twenty yards from him now and he knew he could get McGunn, even if the other one took him.
“We don’t want to kill you, Cooper.”
“Then put up your weapons.”
“We want the woman. Give us the whore’s arse of a woman and you’re a free man.”
Boltfoot ignored them and kept his caliver trained on McGunn.
“There’s no way out for you, Cooper. Drop your weapon and I pledge you will be safe. We can follow you all day, if needs must.”
The door behind Boltfoot swung open. A woman with an empty basket, all done up in her pynner and light worsted cape as if she was going to market, stepped out and stopped, looking with astonishment at Boltfoot.
He struggled up and, bent double, pushed past her into the house. A shot exploded behind him and took the basket clean from the woman’s hand, tossing it thirty feet along the street. She stood frozen, mouth agape. Behind her, the door was slammed shut by Boltfoot. He pushed home the heavy bolt, locking her outside.
Boltfoot found himself in the spacious stone-flagged anteroom of a solidly built new-brick merchant’s house. He took in his options at a glance. There were two doors leading further into the building. Take the wrong one and he might be trapped. He took the one on the left and found himself in a kitchen. A young, scar-faced malkin dropped the copper pot she was scouring and it clattered to the floor at her feet. Boltfoot sidestepped past her.
“Is there a postern door?”
Wide-eyed, she pointed behind her to another door from the kitchen. Boltfoot went toward it. From the front of the building, he could hear the smashing of glass. They were stoving in a window to get into the house.
He pushed on through the door into a buttery. There were shelves of preserved fruits, baskets of eggs, kegs of ale, and a churn for butter. There was another door, wide open, leading to a large backyard. He plunged through it without hesitation.
The yard was enclosed by a brick wall. At one end there was a chicken coop, where half a dozen fowl clucked and pecked at seeds. A goat was tethered in the middle of a grassy area in the center of the yard; it looked up at Boltfoot with soulful, disinterested eyes, then returned to munching grass. It seemed to Boltfoot he was trapped.
He went back inside. The malkin cowered in terror, holding the copper pot in front of her as a weapon of defense.
“Is there a way out?”
He heard a loud crash from the front of the house. Through the open doorway to the anteroom, he could see that they had a mallet and were beating down the mullion and transom of the window.
The malkin could not-or would not-speak. With the copper pot, she gestured once more to the yard, as though desperate to get this man out of her kitchen at any cost. Boltfoot went out into the yard once more. His eyes lighted on the chicken coop again. It might just take his weight.
He slung his caliver across his back, then dragged himself over the low picket fence that kept the birds enclosed. They scattered in a wild panic of feathers and clucking. Awkwardly he clambered onto the roof of the coop. It was rickety and certainly not built to take a man’s weight, but it held and gave him enough height to reach the top of the brick wall. Sweat poured from his bandaged head into his eyes. His hands were slippery, yet he managed to get a grip at the top of the wall and, with every remaining ounce of strength, pulled himself up and swung his good leg, his right leg, over the top. For a moment, he hung there precariously, trying to get back his breath. Then, with a mighty effort, he pulled his left foot up and over and fell in a clatter of weapons on the far side
