to the ground, he tried to edge away toward the copse where he had been hiding. A musket shot rent the air and a ball struck the ground where he had been a moment earlier. He let out a scream, to make them think he had been hit. Another shot. This time the ball hit the dead body of the assailant with a sickening whump.
Boltfoot did not halt. He had to move away or the next shot would do for him. But how could he move in open ground when McGunn had his range? As he inched away, Boltfoot resigned himself to death.
S HAKESPEARE PEERED out of the empty window. He could make out two dark humps on the ground in front of the house. One was moving, one was not. Boltfoot was either dead or in trouble. Shakespeare pointed the caliver in the general direction of the dark-shadowed abbey ruins and loosed off a ball, with no idea where he was shooting.
The recoil knocked him back into the room, just as another shot whipped over his head and struck the far wall, gouging out an uneven wedge of mortar and stone.
He scrabbled up into a crouching position. It was darker inside the room than out. “Catherine,” he whispered. “Catherine, keep down. Lie flat.”
“John, she’s gone.” Her voice was urgent and low.
“What are you saying?”
“It’s so dark. I think Eleanor slid out of the other window into the night.”
“She will die out there.”
“She said something: ‘Futile, futile.’ Then she was no longer at my side.”
They were trapped like magpies in a cage, and the bird they had been trying to save had flown. Another musket-ball struck nearby, dislodging a six-inch splinter of rotting wood from the empty window frame.
Shakespeare raised his head, looked out, and saw a light. A pitch torch cast an eerie glow on the broken walls and archways of the long-dead abbey. A figure crossed in front of the torch. How many men were there? Two? Three? Four? Twenty?
Another musket-ball exploded in the night.
“Catherine,” he whispered, reloading the caliver as best he could. “I am going out there. We must both get out from this house. It is a death trap. You make for the woods, away from the abbey.”
“I know this land, John. Do not fret for me. You do what you must do.”
“Go first. Slip from the window, then run as fast as you are able. Do not go straight, but weave from side to side. Foil their aim. Crouch low.”
“Mr. Shakespeare, I see you are as overbearing as ever. But for once, I shall forget my pride and obey you.”
He could scarcely see her in the gloom, but he could smell her musky scent and feel her close presence. Quickly he took her in his arms and kissed her. Her arms encircled him as she arched her body into his. It was as if there had never been any distance between them.
They moved away, their hands clasping each other’s until it was just the tips of their fingers touching. “Go, Mistress Shakespeare. Go and survive and I pledge that I will never attempt to command you again.”
C ATHERINE WAS SMALL and slight. She slid over the sill and ran. She knew every inch of this ground and headed with all speed through the teeming rain toward the copse to the right of the house. She thought she saw two bodies to her side, but she paid them no heed. She could do nothing for them, whoever they were.
One musket-ball, two, clipped past her, slapping into the wet ground somewhere beyond her. And then she was in the dripping trees. She went on, catching her dress on brambles, battling through thorny undergrowth until she was sure she was clear of the killing ground.
She sat a few moments on the wet leaves, caught her breath, then moved on toward the abbey and McGunn. Even without light, she would be able to navigate her way through its stones. She had obeyed her husband against her better judgment once before; she had no intention of doing so again. Someone had to see what sort of foe they were up against, and no one was better qualified on this terrain than she.
The sight that greeted her was awful in its horror. When she had encountered Father Robert Southwell, bundled in agony against the wall of the Gatehouse Prison, she had thought there could be nothing more hideous in the world, that she would be haunted by his torment for the remainder of her days. But this… the awfulness of this lay in the very familiarity of the surroundings, this place of happiness from her childhood days, now turned into a scene of unspeakable barbarity.
Covered lanterns had been lit, casting a hellish light on the old, rain-wet stones of the monks’ dorter, where the Cistercian brothers had once slept. From the high wall of this dormitory, a rope had been slung over a projecting beam. It hung down malevolently, with a noose at its end around the slim neck of Eleanor Dare.
A long ladder had been placed against the wall. Eleanor was halfway up the steps, forlorn and drenched, her arms bound behind her back, waiting to be hanged. A man behind her was pushing her ever upward and she scarce seemed to put up any resistance, as though she were resigned to her fate.
Beneath her, two more men stood watching, both of them heavily armed. One of them held the loose end of the hanging rope, tightening it as Eleanor ascended the ladder.
“Come out, Shakespeare!”
Catherine, crouching behind a block of sandstone in the old cloister, did not know the voice but guessed it to be Charlie McGunn’s. It was rough and taunting.
“Come out, Shakespeare. Come and see the show. We’ll do your wife next, make a night of it. Your man Cooper is already dead. Here you are, come and get him…”
With immense strength, the man dragged a short, squat body from the ground and held it aloft over his head. He spun it around, then flung it away as casually as a farmer would toss a sack of turnips into a cart.
The other men with him laughed.
Boltfoot dead! Oh, Jane, poor Jane. Catherine felt utter despair. She had no way of saving this poor woman, any more than she had been able to save Southwell or Anne Bellamy from the foul Topcliffe. John had been right all along. Be wary. Place your trust in cold caution, not faith. While God slept, the powerful held sway and the good died.
Chapter 44
S HAKESPEARE HAD FOLLOWED CATHERINE THROUGH the window but ran away from her to divide McGunn’s fire. He had barely gone five yards when the musket-ball hit him. He fell heavily to the ground, grunting with shock. His right hand went to his left shoulder. The ball had sheared a groove of flesh, on the outside of the upper arm, just beneath the shoulder blade.
Ignoring the injury as best he could, he dived for cover behind a broken old wain. The ancient wagon sat on its overgrown undercarriage, its four wheels fallen away and splayed out. He heard horses whinnying away to his right. He touched his shoulder again. It was sticky with blood and rain. He still clutched the caliver in his left hand. He tried to cover it beneath his cape. If he could loose off one shot at close range, it might be crucial.
He heard a voice, not more than thirty yards away. McGunn. Taunting him. Threatening to kill his wife. Gloating that Boltfoot was dead.
Shakespeare crawled away to his left. No musket-balls followed him. There was a low dry-stone wall, and he sped the last three steps until he was behind it. For a moment, he caught his breath. Hunching low so that only the curve of his back was visible above the wall, he began running-away from McGunn, but also around him. He would come at him from the other side, to the south of the abbey ruins.
He stopped and peered over the wall. He had a clear view now. The area in front of the abbey was lit by torches. He saw the rope slung high and he saw Eleanor Dare about to die. The man behind her pushed her roughly and she climbed another rung up the ladder. Apart from him and a man who looked from behind very like McGunn, there was one other visible. But there could be any number of armed men concealed.
In the darkness behind the high wall with the noose, he saw a movement in the stones. He peered closer and saw, with horror, that it was Catherine. Shakespeare had to do something, and fast. He took aim with the caliver,
