Boltfoot went out to find his caliver and take the firearms, swords, and daggers of the dead men. In the woods, he found the man he had clubbed. He was still breathing but unconscious. Boltfoot tied his inert body to a tree and left him there to soak in the unceasing rain. As to the dead men, they would deal with them in the morning.
Helped by Shakespeare, Catherine had brought Eleanor to the shepherd’s cottage. She had her hand to her fiercely swollen throat, and though she was weak and faltering, she was conscious and able to walk slowly. They sat her down in the other room and gave her sips of ale to try to soothe her. Catherine gathered up capes and blankets and made a palliasse for her to lie on.
“Sleep, if you can,” Catherine said gently. “You are safe now. I will stay with you.”
In the other room, Boltfoot had his caliver, now dried and primed with fresh gunpowder, trained on McGunn. Shakespeare ignored the blood seeping from his own wounded shoulder and took over. “It were best if you ride for Masham, Boltfoot, to the constable.”
Boltfoot nodded obediently and handed the weapon to his master.
McGunn looked at his captor with eyes that seemed strangely resigned. “Would you have a sup of ale for me, Mr. Shakespeare?”
Shakespeare had a flagon at his side. He held it to McGunn’s lips. He drank thirstily.
“Thank you,” he said. “You can stop pointing that thing at me, you know. I’m not going anywhere.” He nodded his close-shaved, pulpy head at the caliver.
Warily, Shakespeare placed the caliver on the dirt floor, well away from his captive but close enough to his own right hand.
“I will be dead soon. I wanted to tell you a thing or two. Explain, perhaps, though I don’t expect anything from you in return. I have no remorse and I seek no redemption. But someone should know what this was about. You might think I am going to hell, but I know that hell is here, in this world.”
“Tell it to the justice.”
“No. I’m going to tell you. It was the autumn of 1580. I was a farrier in those days. I had never picked up anything more lethal than a hammer and never struck anything but an iron shoe on the anvil in anger. I had a wife and was about to have a child. My wife-my beautiful fine girl-was called Maggie Maeve and I loved her more than life itself. You’d know about that, Shakespeare. You have a beautiful fine girl yourself.
“We lived a little inland, in a farm village. Maggie Maeve’s widowed mother lived at the coast, at Smerwick, or St. Mary Wick-well, that’s its English name. It is a lovely harbor village, a little way north of Dingle Bay on the southwest coast of Ireland. Maggie Maeve was heavy with child when she went to visit her mother that October. She had no idea-how could we-that a Catholic force of a few hundred Spaniards and Italians had landed and that the English were coming for them, in force. Four thousand blood-hungry savages from this monstrous island, who had no cause to be in my country.
“Maggie Maeve found herself trapped, along with the Spanish and Italian soldiers and two hundred Irish men and women who had joined them to fight the English. She had no way back to me, for the English laid siege to their makeshift fort with artillery. All escape was blocked off. After three days of bombardment, it was clear the situation was hopeless and so the besieged Spaniards and their Irish allies hung out the white flag of
“What happened?”
“What do you think happened, Mr. Shakespeare? The English slaughtered them. Every man-excepting the few Spanish nobles that might raise a ransom-was disarmed, bound, and cut to pieces one by one by the English soldiery. Butchered like oxen: a hack of the sword to the neck, sometimes severing the head, sometimes not, then a thrust to the stomach to make certain. Hew and punch. That was what they did to the men. First, though, they saw to the few women that they had caught. Nor was Maggie Maeve the only one with child. They hanged them by the neck until they were dead. They strung up Maggie Maeve like a common criminal, though she was nothing of the sort. She was a beautiful fine girl with a smile and laugh that would light a room brighter than a thousand beeswax candles. They strung her up and killed her and my unborn child. She looked a lot like your wife, Shakespeare. Long dark hair, blue eyes.”
“I’m sorry,” Shakespeare said.
“Well, it’s a grand thing to be sorry. But I didn’t want your apology or your pity. I wanted your blood, and your wife’s blood, and I wanted it to flow and flow until the whole world was washed red. Because nothing you can do or say can bring Maggie Maeve back to me. Mr. Slyguff was the same as I, an honest tanner, until the English took his tongue and cut it from him with his own shears, then set about snipping his brother’s fingers as if they were manicuring his nails.”
Shakespeare’s stomach turned. “But what had the Roanoke colonists to do with all this? I recognize King Philip’s thirst for vengeance for the defeat of his Armada. But what were those people to
“Ah, now, that’s the story, isn’t it? Let me tell you this. The English force was commanded by one Arthur Grey of Wilton. I care nothing for him. He is a mere stain on the world. The one I wanted was the one that oversaw the killing field, who took delight in kicking away the ladder from beneath Maggie Maeve’s feet and who watched her die, though she was heavy with child. The man who waded in the blood of men who had surrendered in good faith that they would be shown English mercy. He is the man I have pursued all these years. He is a man revered by your stinking nation, Mr. Shakespeare, and you know him.”
Chapter 45
R ALEGH?”
“Of course Ralegh. He was the butcher, and I have dogged his steps ever since. I have piled treasure upon treasure on Robert Devereux of Essex to increase his favor and reduce Ralegh’s. I have gone to the ends of the earth to destroy his ambitions and plans for a New World colony. I have killed his soldiers and his mariners, one by one. I made sure Essex dripped word in the ears of your sovereign when I heard of Ralegh’s new marriage so that he now languishes in the Tower. And I have told him about it all. He knows what happened at Roanoke. Oh, he knows it, for I wrote it for him plain. Everything I have done has been done to hurt Ralegh. Bit by bit, piece by little piece, I have cut the flesh from his reputation, bringing him ever closer to ruin and despair.”
“Why not simply kill him?”
“That would be but a moment’s pleasure. I wanted him to live long and be haunted until the end of his days. I wanted him to be married so I could destroy his wife and his child. He had to know that I would traverse the world to destroy him and all that was his. Vengeance without end.”
Shakespeare felt sick in his stomach. Could a man pursue vengeance with such relentless persistence down through the years? “But how do you know it was Ralegh? Were there survivors?”
McGunn laughed bitterly. “No, there were no survivors. But there was one there unseen: Maggie Maeve’s young brother was hidden behind a rock. He saw it all and described the man to me, though he was but six years old at the time. And later, years later, in the year 1585 when first we came to England, he pointed him out to me wide- eyed with horror and there was no doubt. I saw the terror and revulsion in his eyes and I knew for certain that it was Ralegh who had done this thing to my wife. It was as certain as if it had been printed on his eyes with a press. My vengeance burns now as bright as it did the day I learned what the English had done at Smerwick.”
“And Essex?”
“I was in England making my fortune, for I had a great need of gold. I gave your filthy people what they wanted and exacted my price. When I learned of the enmity between Essex and Ralegh, I knew that Essex must be my friend. And a good friend I have been to him, giving him gold aplenty. I asked nothing in return, for I knew that, enriched, he would give me what I needed: humiliation for Ralegh. It was a simple trade, though I doubt Essex ever had the wit to understand its workings.”
“But you speak of Ralegh’s wife and child as though you would even take vengeance on them…”
McGunn’s lips curled down in the humorless likeness of a smile. “His child is already dead, Mr. Shakespeare. Poor little Damerei Ralegh, damned and dead in the night.”
“This cannot be so.”
