Revenger

assailant was behind him, twisting the rope with unreasoning ferocity, pushing him down toward the ground with a foot in his lower back. It would be a quick kill.

Shakespeare kept his footing, just, and swung around, desperately trying to stay upright. He was a tall man, but Slyguff’s wiry body had the tight, ungiving strength of twisted cable. Shakespeare shouldered his attacker into a wall, pulling a tapestry down about his head. Slyguff’s grasp slipped for a moment, just long enough for Shakespeare to push two fingers of his left hand under the noose to save his windpipe from being crushed.

But he was already choking for air and knew he had little time left. Dimly, he saw a figure in a doorway further along the hall, in the light of a sconce. It was Topcliffe. Richard Topcliffe, standing there, pipe in his mouth exhaling fumes, a smile on his wicked face as he watched Shakespeare going down to his death.

Shakespeare could not die, would not die. It was not merely his own life that counted now. Death was nothing. The thought of Topcliffe’s satisfied smirk gave Shakespeare the rage he needed. With the desperation of a wounded animal just as the predator closes in for the kill, he found Slyguff’s balls with his right hand and crushed them as if squeezing every drop of juice from a lemon.

A guttural sound came from the back of Slyguff’s throat, but he wrenched frantically at the rope even as he curled into himself. Shakespeare knew this was his last hope. He slid his fingers out from under the rope constricting his neck. He barely noticed they were rubbed raw by the rough hemp, or the injuries inflicted on his throat that threatened to do for him. He needed this arm free. With a stab of desperation, he elbowed back into Slyguff’s face. Again and again, beating his temple against the wall, he elbowed the man, bearing down on him with all his remaining power and weight.

At last the rope loosened. Shakespeare fell away, panting. He picked up his sword. Topcliffe was coming his way, his blackthorn in his right hand. The grin had not left his face all the while. Shakespeare pointed the sword in Topcliffe’s direction, but he did not have the energy to rise and run him through. Topcliffe pushed the blade away with the silver tip of his blackthorn, then knelt down beside Shakespeare and the silent, writhing figure of Slyguff. He put his left hand over Slyguff’s face and pushed him down into the ground. Carefully, he put the blackthorn to one side and picked up the discarded rope, twisting it once, twice, around the Irishman’s neck, then turned the ends in his fist, so that the rope creaked. Shakespeare heard a sudden crack as Topcliffe pulled Slyguff’s head back by his hair, snapping his neck.

The body went limp, save for the occasional jerking of the legs and arms. Slyguff was dead. Topcliffe released the rope, then picked up his stick and held it to the raised weal circling Shakespeare’s throat.

“I was enjoying that,” he said, deliberately blowing smoke into Shakespeare’s eyes. “Better than the bull- baiting, I fancy.”

Shakespeare expected to be killed at any moment. The blackthorn had a heavy head, like a cudgel, and one blow to the temple would do for him. Yet he had no strength left to defend himself; he had expended all against Slyguff. All he could do was put his hands to his own bruised throat and gasp for breath. He was coughing, choking, his lungs were heaving, and his head was pounding as if he had been struck with a six-pound hammer, but he no longer cared.

Topcliffe withdrew the stick. “You’re soaked through, Shakespeare. Mustn’t go out in weather like this without a cape and hat or you’ll catch your death.” Topcliffe laughed at his own black humor. “Come on, you Papist-loving milksop turd, I need your help to carry this dead weight.”

Shakespeare’s breathing began to ease.

“I’m protecting her, you slow-witted worm,” Topcliffe said, as if reading Shakespeare’s thoughts. “You don’t think Cecil would have left the Countess’s safety in your hands?”

Shakespeare struggled to his feet and twisted his head from side to side, all the while rubbing his neck. He knew how near he had come to death.

“Take the legs,” Topcliffe ordered, sliding his hands under Slyguff’s shoulders. “Come on.”

“Why did you kill him?” Shakespeare demanded, his voice rasping and sore. “We could have questioned him.”

Topcliffe snorted scornfully and blew a cloud of smoke from between his lips. He dropped the body and wrenched open the dead man’s mouth. “Look in there,” he said.

Shakespeare looked into a gaping, tongue-less hole.

“Cut out at the root. You could have questioned him, but he would never have answered you. His silence was assured. Come, Shakespeare, you sniveling boy, pick him up and get him away from here. Sir Robert will not want her ladyship’s peace disturbed by the discovery of a dead Irishman outside her chamber.”

Chapter 36

T HEY DRAGGED THE BODY FROM THE HOUSE UNDER the terrified eyes of the guard. Topcliffe ordered the man to fetch a handcart and a tarpaulin. The guard dropped his pike, which clattered to the stone-flagged ground, and scuttled like a beaten dog into a workshop.

When he re-emerged, they hauled the corpse into the cart, covering it in a heavy sheet of canvas.

“Haul away, Shakespeare,” jeered Topcliffe. “Put your back into it.”

Topcliffe and Shakespeare took one handle of the cart each and pulled it through a side passageway. It was hard going in the rain over the rough, muddy grass and tree roots as they pulled their burden down through the woods to the west of the castle toward the river. Their clothes were soaking, rain pouring down their necks beneath their flattened ruffs.

“These people piss me off,” Topcliffe growled to no one in particular as they reached the river and hoisted the body out of the cart and dropped it unceremoniously onto the slippery bank.

Shakespeare saw the pair of black shears hooked on the dead man’s belt and shuddered as he thought of Jack Butler. And Boltfoot Cooper? Had they also shorn that loyal man of his fingers?

Topcliffe kicked at the body like a football, pushing it with his foot into the edge of the slow-running waters of the stream. “Traitors. Agents of the Antichrist, every one of them. What sort of man orders the murder of his own wife?”

What sort of man, thought Shakespeare, has a torture chamber in his own house and laughs and jests as he tears men apart? But all he said was, “An ambitious man.”

“He was going to hang her, make it look as though she had taken her own life in her madness. Lucky I was there, eh, boy?”

The body floated out into center stream, caught the current, and began to drift away. They watched it for a few moments until an arm became tangled in some roots protruding from the far bank, and the body twisted around.

“They’re all the same. Essex and his mewling, dissembling ilk. Noble blood? I’d stick their ancestry up their treacherous arses. Southampton is the worst. Thought he could keep the vile Southwell from my pretty chamber of iron and fire.” Topcliffe barked a laugh. “No one bests Richard Topcliffe-and certainly not girl-boys like Southampton and Southwell. Who’ll fondle the Earl’s little pizzle now Southwell is in my grasp? Your brother, I fancy. He’ll rub him up and down, up and down with a handful of sweet chrism, I shouldn’t wonder.”

Shakespeare stiffened with contained fury. Now the carcass was dumped, he just wanted to get back to the castle as quickly as possible and talk with Cecil. He was breathing easier, but his throat was bruised and he would have a neck as rough as birch-bark for days. He started marching back up the bank into the trees.

“You next, Shakespeare,” Topcliffe spat after him through the rain. “You and your Papist dog-wife and Romish puppies. I’ll have you all swimming like Mr. Slyguff here. I’ll be dancing when your severed parts are parboiling merrily in the Tyburn cauldron.”

Shakespeare turned back, half-sliding, half-stepping down the muddy incline. Taking the powerfully built Topcliffe by surprise, he swung a wild punch at him, catching him on the side of the head. Topcliffe stumbled and sprawled into the mud.

“Your threats have never scared me, Topcliffe, but no one calls my wife a bitch. Learn some manners as you grovel.”