Essex was thunderstruck, frozen in indecision. And then he acted. He strode toward one of his heavily armed band and seized a flail that hung loose from his belt. The weapon had a three-foot haft, then a short chain of four or five links, attached to which was a heavy metal ball with six spikes protruding like a bursting sun. As Shakespeare pulled the bride through the center of the church toward the door, he did not see Essex pursuing him like a man possessed, the haft of the flail clasped in both hands as if he would bring it down in a man-killing blow.
Shakespeare pushed on toward the open door, but then his exit was closed off. Half a dozen men-at-arms barred his way, among them Sir Toby Le Neve and the swordsman in scarlet velvet.
Le Neve put up the flat of his hand at Shakespeare’s chest. “Mr. Shakespeare, you have an unpleasant habit of appearing where you are not wanted. Now, hold fast. You will not leave this church.”
Shakespeare pushed the hand aside. “I take no orders from murderers.” He had lost all fear now. “This is Queen’s business, Le Neve. Move aside. I have enough on you to hang you twice over and will deal with you later.”
A three-pound ball of solid black iron, encrusted with short, deadly spikes, came down through the air toward Shakespeare’s head. He had no way to get clear of the blow. All he saw was the look in Le Neve’s eyes-a look of horror and dismay.
Le Neve flung him sideways to the stone-flagged floor of the church, and Shakespeare felt a whisper of pain as a spike of the flail skimmed his temple on its downward trajectory. Behind him, Arbella sprawled forward, tripping over her skirts and collapsing in a sobbing heap at the edge of the aisle.
It was Le Neve who took the blow. The dead weight of the ball and the malevolent spikes crushed through the bottom half of his face, destroying his chin and carrying on into his throat, where it dug through his windpipe, pummeling his Adam’s apple into a mush of gore and gristle. He crumpled at the knees and was thrown backwards to the ground, the spikes embedded in his upper body. Blood gurgled in the remains of his throat and spurted from his demolished mouth. His upper lip moved as though he were trying to say something, but no coherent sounds emanated from him.
Shakespeare should have scrabbled away, for out of the corner of his eye he could see the flail being raised again, but instead he rose to his knees and knelt beside Le Neve. He saw cloudy resignation in the warrior’s eyes, followed quickly by the opacity of death. Feeling a curious pang of sorrow, he was about to close the dead man’s eyes when he looked up to see Essex about to bring down the flail once more and knew that he, too, was about to die.
“Enough!”
Bess of Hardwick was not tall, scarce over five foot, and yet her voice boomed through the echoing chambers of the church like that of a sergeant-at-arms.
The arc of the ball’s swing hovered at its zenith. Essex stared down at this diminutive woman and Shakespeare rolled sideways, out of reach of Essex’s blood-dripping flail.
Bess looked at the Earl with disdain, then stepped forward, past the body of Sir Toby Le Neve, and roughly grabbed the forearm of her young ward.
“Come with me, you foolish girl,” she commanded, dragging Arbella to her feet with astonishing strength. Ignoring the sharp steel that surrounded her on all sides, she turned to the man in the scarlet velvet suit of clothes and gazed on him with stern majesty. “Do you think it wise to pull a sword on your mistress, Mr. Morley? Look outside the church door, if you will.”
Morley, Essex, and everyone else within the church turned to look through the gaping doorway. The churchyard was full of men.
Bess smacked the man called Morley across the cheek. “Return to your classroom, sir. I will have words with you later.” She nodded to two men who had followed her into the church, and they each grasped one of Morley’s arms and dragged him out. She then pulled Arbella with an angry tug of her arm and marched her from the church. Shakespeare rose and followed her.
Men of every size and shape thronged the churchyard: working men with hoes, hammers, hayforks, picks, trowels, and shovels, but also with longbows, crossbows, halberds, axes, and rust-bitten arquebuses. Perhaps five hundred in all, maybe more. They looked like an army ready to do battle and not give an inch.
Some were mounted on farm horses and oxen; some had arrows laid across fully drawn bowstaves, ready to strike a man dead within the blink of an eye. They wore the leather jerkins and aprons of builders and carpenters, stonemasons and farmhands. They were a ragtag bunch, but they were a fearsome sight-and they outnumbered Essex’s men twenty-five to one.
Bess smiled with satisfaction at the sight of all her builders and estate workers, hastily assembled by her retainers this morning. She knew they were all loyal, would kill and die for her, for she had brought prosperity to them and their families with her great building works and with her well-husbanded farmlands and industries. She turned back to Essex, who had followed her to the door. “Well, my lord,” she asked, “do you have any argument with me now?”
Essex scowled as he gazed upon the unexpected army that confronted him and upon the slight figure of the woman who dared defy him.
He dropped the flail, drew his sword, and seemed about to lunge at her, but suddenly two long-handled weapons-an old pike and a dungfork-came across his path, forming a cross that barred his way. An archer stepped forward, close to Bess’s side, and pulled his bowstring taut, the arrow pointing directly at the Earl’s heart.
Penelope Rich touched her brother’s arm. “Come, Robert,” she said softly. “Do not die here at the hands of peasants. Live-and prepare for another day.”
In the confusion, no one noticed the minister, Oswald Finningley, waddling into the vestry, his skirts clutched about his knees for ease of movement. With a shaking hand, he opened a little cupboard and took out a pint-flagon of communion wine, which he uncorked and drank in one draft.
Chapter 39
I T WAS OVER. THERE WOULD BE NO PITCHED BATTLE between men-at-arms and common men, no civil war on a muddy field in Derbyshire beneath lead-gray skies. Where Essex saw only a mist of blood, his elder sister saw things with sun-bright clarity. She knew that Bess would say nothing of this and nor would John Shakespeare. She understood the workings of their minds. She left the church with her head held high. With fortune, there would be another day for the Devereux clan. She would consult Dr. Forman.
On the porch, John Shakespeare stood face-to-face with Essex. “My lord, you will disband and hasten from this place, for if you do not, I vow that a royal militia will be raised against you that will hunt you and your band down to all your deaths.”
Essex ignored him. He looked down at the flail where it lay in the mud, its round head covered in the thick, coagulating blood of Sir Toby Le Neve. He seemed to study it, as if he would find some answers there, in its unforgiving iron. He shook his head slightly, perhaps suddenly realizing what he had done. “Toby…”
Shakespeare gazed on the strange, poignant tableau with a mixture of feelings. Le Neve had saved his life, had deliberately put himself in harm’s way and had taken the lethal blow intended for his foe. It was a difficult thing to comprehend, that a man guilty of such a heinous crime should sacrifice his own life for a near stranger; perhaps there was a conscience in that heart, a need to find redemption. “He died in honor, my lord. Take him and bury him with military honors.”
If Essex had words, he did not utter them. He looked at Shakespeare for a moment without expression, then strode away, across the face of Bess’s army, followed in dribs and drabs by his supporters. Four of them lifted up the body of Sir Toby Le Neve and bore him on their shoulders; they would take him away from here and bury him in their own way.
Their horses were tethered in the trees at the edge of the churchyard. Essex threw himself into the saddle of his black charger and kicked it into motion with unnecessary ferocity, galloping off southward in the direction of Hardwick Hall, his disorganized contingent trailing in his wake.
Shakespeare watched them go until only Lady Rich was left.
“What will you do now, Mr. Shakespeare?”
