Revenger

Topcliffe floundered and slid, grasping at nettles and briars as he tried to rise. Shakespeare turned on his heel. Topcliffe lashed out with his arm to trip or catch his retreating foot, but he kicked free and ascended the bank once more into the trees, then strode back toward the dim, flickering lights of Sudeley Castle through the rain-drenched night.

C ECIL WAS AWAKE, pacing his bedchamber in his night-clothes. Clarkson had brought him news of Essex’s departure.

“There is no time to lose, John,” he said when Shakespeare entered the room. “You must be gone to Hardwick straightway.”

Shakespeare told him of Slyguff’s intent on the life of the Countess of Essex. “He now floats in the River Isbourne, the air choked out of him and his neck cracked by Topcliffe.”

“Good.”

“I confess, Sir Robert, I was surprised by Topcliffe’s role in this.”

Cecil shrugged off the implied criticism of his secret dealings with the brutal torturer. “Suffice it to say that whatever you think of him, no one is more loyal to his sovereign. He is the Queen’s servant: his only loyalty is to his Protestant God and his monarch. And he has assisted me in keeping the Countess of Essex alive. We will talk more of it later; there is no time now. But I thank you for your work-you have confirmed all my fears.” He handed Shakespeare a letter, with his seal of office as Privy Councillor. “Now carry this letter to the Countess of Shrewsbury at Hardwick. Ride like the wind.”

Shakespeare’s brow furrowed. “Do you not think I need to take men with me, Sir Robert? Essex’s band is twenty strong men-at-arms.”

Cecil did not smile. “Do you think I want another Battle of Bosworth Field, Mr. Shakespeare? What would happen if I sent you with twenty men, a hundred men? You would start a civil war. Subtlety is required here, sir, subtlety. That is why I want you and not Topcliffe. Arrive before Essex and you can spirit the girl away to a place of safety, which would be the best solution for all concerned. Ride fast. You must stop a wedding.”

P ENELOPE RICH STIRRED in her black sheets and looked at the man on the bed cushions beside her. She ran her elegant fingers through the dark curls that flowed across the pillow. She loved him and wanted more of his children.

The man beside her on the bed at Blithfield Hall in Staffordshire was Sir Charles Blount, a kinsman of her mother’s husband Christopher Blount. Charles had been her lover for two years, their passion all-consuming. At the age of twenty-nine, she had already done her duty by the husband forced upon her by her family and her sovereign, bearing him five children; now, in her prime, she had had her first with Charles.

She smiled in the early evening light and thought of the other man in her life: her younger brother, Robert. She wanted the world for him. His heart was strong but he was so easily-so infuriatingly-distracted. He needed her steel to drive him on to the goal he deserved. It was her life’s work, her great project. One day he would be king, and she would guide his hand.

Three years earlier, she had made an error; she had courted the Scots King, James, with sweet letters and flattery, hoping for preferment if they could raise him to the English throne on Elizabeth’s death. She had nearly come unstuck when word of that emerged. But the close call made her think: Why hand the throne to James Stuart? Why not this family? Her great-grandmother was Mary Boleyn, beloved of a king. Could anyone doubt that Great Henry himself was her great-grandfather? That his royal blood flowed in their veins?

Elizabeth knew it. That was why she scorned them. Penelope’s mother had been banished from court; so had her sister. And was Robert chosen as the Queen’s toy-dog for any reason other than to rub their noses in the Queen’s shit?

The Devereux women had seethed at the injustice of it-every slight, every snub, every humiliating plea for money that her brother had to issue. Why, he had to woo the old hag like a girl to win preferment; it was worse than any degradation endured by a common whore.

And then Penelope had seen a way to repay her; a way to raise the Devereux family to the position that was rightfully theirs. It was the arrival at court of a rather plain, lonely girl who would not be noticed in any room were it not for one thing: her undoubted claim to the succession.

Her name was Arbella Stuart, and many believed her right to the crown to be greater than that of her cousin James Stuart.

Penelope had observed her. She saw the way the awkward young girl looked at her brother, gazing on him adoringly, like a hound-pup stares up at its master-wide-eyed, waggy-tailed, and longing to submit. That was when the plan took shape in Penelope’s clever head. If Robert were to marry Arbella, the union of their bloodlines would be too powerful for any to gainsay, even the Cecils.

But wooing the girl under the watchful gaze of her guardians alone was difficult, so Penelope had had another idea. Robert must court her from afar, with words. And she knew just the poet to pen those words: young William Shakespeare. His verses dripped passion, and he was desperate for patronage.

It had worked. This night, the girl would be lying awake in her bedchamber at Hardwick Hall, her mind full of Robert Devereux, her bold Earl of Essex, her love; wet for him, breathless in her desire to be taken.

A wedding was but the start. It had to be followed through with conviction or it would merely consign both Robert and Arbella to the Tower, just as Ralegh now languished there with his new bride.

They needed a protective circle of men. A Round Table of the greatest in the land; men to stand with them. Southampton and Rutland for their nobility; McGunn for his endless stream of gold; Thomas Phelippes, Francis Mills, Arthur Gregory, and Anthony Bacon for their secret ways; Francis Bacon for his political instincts; Meyrick, Danvers, Williams, and Le Neve for their military prowess.

With meticulous care, wiles, and flattery, she had drawn them in. At last the group was complete: twenty or thirty of the most formidable men in the kingdom, all utterly loyal to her brother. Men whom even the Cecils could not resist.

There would be no arrest warrant issued while these noble warriors, along with their host of retainers and knights, stood together. And if there was resistance, if the issue was forced… well, the throne would come to Robert all the quicker.

There had been one minor hurdle to overcome: Robert’s wife, Frances. Though she was dull, Penelope had always rather liked her. Her instinct was merely to ignore the marriage, have it annulled as unlawful at a later date. That would be easy enough, especially once the crown was theirs. But others felt it might be better if she was out of the way before the wedding.

The last part of the puzzle had been John Shakespeare. Mr. Mills had been insistent that there was no better man in England to organize the vital work of intelligence-gathering. With his brother so deeply involved, it was better that he stand with them, too. And such skills as he possessed would be critical once the crown was theirs. If anyone could protect the fledgling regime from usurpers and rebels, it was a man of his anxious diligence-a man who, like Walsingham, had worked so tirelessly to protect his Queen for so many years. Shakespeare was such a man. Shakespeare would be their Walsingham.

Her brother had not been sure of John Shakespeare; he told her that McGunn had doubts. She had her own doubts, though: doubts about McGunn. Though they had needed his riches, she understood the danger of selling him their souls. McGunn would want much in return, yet the nature of that reckoning had never been clear.

Penelope turned toward Charles and curled her body around his. He was warm. She wrapped her arms around his waist and her hands found his yard, which stirred at her touch. She would like him to take her now, but it hardly seemed fair when he slept so peacefully after their long afternoon of lovemaking.

The rain beat against the walls.

She fancied she heard horses in the distance, but she had imagined that all day long. They would come, she was sure of it. This night, they would come to her on the first leg of their momentous journey.

She sat up. Even through the howling rain, she could hear the trample of hooves on heavy ground. Suddenly there was a clatter as the first horses came through onto the cobbles in the courtyard. Penelope nudged her beloved. “Charles, they are here.”

He turned to her. His face was severe in the cloud-darkened light. As a soldier, he was used to waking to instant alertness without the groggy interlude of ordinary mortals. “I am not coming. I will not see them.”