“Because, my lady, I have urgent business in the north.”
T HE RAIN HAD STOPPED but the September sky was still a dark gray. Shakespeare reined in his mount at the crossroads where the long track from Hardwick Hall intersected the great south-north road. There was nothing more he could do. Cecil would put a ring of impenetrable iron and steel around the Queen. If she were to die on September the eighteenth, as predicted by Dr. Forman’s death chart, it would have to be by God’s hand, not man’s.
He looked both ways, then turned left. Duty could wait.
The journey north, a hundred miles, might be possible in a day if ridden hard. But the gray mare had already suffered harsh treatment on the way to Hardwick from Sudeley, and so he took it more easily, stopping the night at a comfortable wayside tavern where he and the horse received good accommodation and fine food-oats and water for her, roast beef, fieldfare puddings, and ale for him.
He left at dawn. By mid-afternoon he was drawing near to Masham in Wensley Dale, a lush valley in the north of the vast county of Yorkshire. He could scarcely move his horse along for sheep. Great flocks of them crowded the road and the grass banks on either side, all being driven in the same direction. An ancient shepherd laughed and said they were all going to the town’s sheep fair. “Seventy thousand sheep,” he said. “Count that if you please, master. That’ll get you off to sleep.”
Black sheep, filthy mud-arsed sheep, shorn sheep, milk-heavy ewes, and ragged rams. Everywhere you looked there was a sea of sheep. The old shepherd told him there used to be a lot more, perhaps a hundred thousand head in the old days before Henry tore down the great abbeys of Jervaulx and Fountains. “My father used to shepherd them for the silent white monks at Jervaulx. When he and I brought the sheep to the fair, it was proper mayhem, like all the clouds had fallen from the sky and landed on the grass.”
Shakespeare left the road, looking to find a better way through the meadows running parallel to the main path. He was apprehensive at the prospect of meeting Catherine’s family for the first time. He knew that her father, James, had developed a shaking palsy and was grown too frail to teach, so they now lived quietly near Masham, with a small pension from the grammar school and the dowry that Catherine’s mother, Mary, had brought to the marriage many years ago. Catherine’s brother was gone up to Cambridge on a scholarship, concealing his Catholicism as best he could.
The market square in Masham was heaving with sheep, many of them penned off but many more on the margins, being moved about in quest of a berth. In a side alley, Shakespeare saw a big lamb being held down and having its throat slit, ready for the butcher. Further along, a boy was sitting by a pot of boiling sheep fat, repeatedly dipping in a wick to make tallow candles. All around there was a mass of movement and the din of human and animal noise. The inns that opened out onto the large square were packed with smock-wearing shepherds and farmers, all quenching their thirst with great jugs of ale. Shakespeare went in the taproom of the first inn and asked a cheerful-looking ale-wench the whereabouts of the Marvell family.
She called out to the landlord. “Jeremiah, where did you say the Marvells lived?”
“Out on the Jervaulx road. Old farmhouse without a farm, on your right. Just past the milestone.”
“There you go, then, master. Northwest is the way. You’re the second stranger today looking for them. Must be a right royal revel out there. Is it christening, wedding, or funeral?”
She was about to turn away to serve another customer, but Shakespeare stayed her with his hand. “This other stranger-what was he like?”
“I don’t know. Square-shaped, strong. Looked more like a pirate than a farmer, with his pistol and sword. Not from these parts neither, from the sound of his voice.”
“A Devonshire man?”
She laughed. “Now, how would I know that? I wouldn’t know a Devon man from a Turkey man. I’ve never been out of Yoredale.”
“Well, did he have a limp, a clubfoot?”
“Can’t say as I looked. There’s hundreds here for the sheep fair, and I’m not going to spend my time staring at their feet. All I can tell you is that he had a face like a dog and gave me a drink-penny for my trouble. Now, are you after some ale, or can I move along?”
Shakespeare thanked her and left the inn, quickly mounting his mare and kicking on through the dense crowd. He prayed it really was Boltfoot arrived here.
He found the farmhouse easily. Mary, Andrew, and Grace were playing in the pathway at the front. Mary was chasing, and the older two were laughing as they dodged her outstretched arms. Mary saw him first and her little face creased into a smile as she ran up to his gray horse.
As he slid from the saddle and scooped her up in his arms, he felt the tension in his neck muscles ease a little and the anguish and terror of the past few days begin to recede.
T HE HOUSE WAS A SCENE of quiet domesticity. Boltfoot was holding his new baby, John, as if the little thing would break at his touch. Jane was enjoying five minutes of respite, sitting on the settle in the parlor beside her husband. She looked at him and their baby with undisguised adoration.
“Well done, Jane,” Shakespeare said. “And you, Boltfoot. It is good fortune that little John takes after his mother, not you, for indeed he is a handsome lad.”
Boltfoot took the insult as a well-meant jest and grunted. “He has perfect little feet. Perfect.”
Shakespeare, still carrying little Mary in his arms, touched his friend’s shoulder. “That is good, Boltfoot.”
“I was frighted about his feet.”
Shakespeare smiled. He handed his assistant a small pouch of tobacco. “I think I owe you that, Boltfoot.”
Boltfoot’s eyes lit up. He had not had a pipe of sotweed in many days.
“He’s brought someone with him, Master Shakespeare,” Jane said. “A woman called Eleanor Dare.”
The words brought Shakespeare up with a jolt. “You found her?”
Boltfoot grunted again. He handed the baby to Jane and began packing a pipe with his new tobacco.
Shakespeare noticed Boltfoot’s head was injured, his hair on one side cut close to reveal the scab of a healing wound. “Boltfoot, your head.”
“That cooper I told you about. He was Mistress Dare’s man. Clubbed me to the ground. But I have a hard head, so the barber-surgeon said at St. Thomas’s Hospital.”
Shakespeare frowned. “Is it truly her? How did she get here?”
“I brought her. It was not safe in London. McGunn wants her dead. I had a shooting match with him, master, and we did ride away in great haste.” Boltfoot proceeded to fill in the details: the shooting of the groom, Perkin Sidesman; the intention to do for Eleanor; the killing of Davy Kerk. “McGunn did for him like an English trooper might, Mr. Shakespeare. Hewed him and punched him with a short sword. And he meant to string up the woman.”
“Out walking with Mistress Shakespeare and her mother, master.”
Shakespeare’s blood was running cold in his veins. “Boltfoot, how long have you been here in Masham?”
“Over a day and a half, master. It was a long journey, could have taken a week over it, but we made good speed-got here in time for the birth, thank the Lord.” His weather-beaten face crinkled into a smile of affection.
So it had not been Boltfoot who had asked the bar-wench for directions earlier this day. “Boltfoot,” Shakespeare said, his tone grim, “McGunn is here. Where did you say Catherine and the women have gone?”
Boltfoot was already putting away his pipe and rising to his feet as Shakespeare spoke. “Sidesman must have told him.”
C HARLIE MCGUNN walked his bay gelding to the livery stable behind the square. The horse was lame. The ostler shook his head and told McGunn the stables were full.
“Don’t worry. He’s yours. Look after him well, for he’s a fine horse and will repay you well if you can mend him. Here, there’s half a crown to help you along.”
The young ostler took the coin and unsaddled the horse. It was not every day a man brought money and a free gelding.
