Revenger

“And now?”

“Now I cannot bear to be without you.”

He had tried to smile and say he loved her, but emotion constricted his throat and mouth and rendered him speechless. He averted his eyes and patted his horse’s neck rather than meet his wife’s gaze.

“The same old John Shakespeare,” Catherine said, laughing lightly. “Too sentimental for his own good; too sentimental to be an intelligencer, that is certain.”

“But that is what I am.”

“I know. You have been a schoolmaster too long. Leave it to Mr. Jerico. He will make a fine job of it. Work for Cecil.”

Shakespeare nodded.

“And John, when you are in London, find out what you may concerning Father Southwell. I pray for him every day, but I fear his suffering must be truly terrible.”

“I will ask Sir Robert what may be done.”

T HE RIDE SOUTH took four days-days of intermittent rain, gray skies, and brisk winds. He arrived at Theobalds to be told by Cecil’s manservant Clarkson that his master had departed for the West Country on urgent royal business. A Portuguese carrack named the Madre de Dios had been taken off the Azores and brought in triumph to the port of Dartmouth. It was said that the vessel was the richest ever seized by English privateers, heavy laden with spices from the East Indies, along with chests flowing over with gold, silver, silks, and gems. But triumph was quickly turning to disaster as mariners and merchants plundered the cargo. The Queen was in a rage, for a large portion of treasure should have been hers by right. Cecil’s task was to protect what was left and recover what had been taken.

“It is said that mariners in the ports of Devon are all drunk, night and day, and are easily known for they all stink of rare Orient perfumes. They sell pearls and amber for the price of a tankard of ale, Mr. Shakespeare. The roads west are packed with merchants, hurrying to buy the treasures from the pillagers. Sir Robert is so concerned that he has summoned Sir Walter Ralegh from his cell in the Tower, to go west to help him in his task of bringing order to the region; the Navy’s treasurer, Sir John Hawkins, believes that if the men will listen to anyone, it is Ralegh.”

“Sir Walter is a free man, then?” So much, thought Shakespeare, for McGunn’s vengeance.

“Not exactly. He is kept under the guard of keepers all the while and will return to the Tower when his mission is done. As for his wife, Bess Throckmorton, she remains in the Tower at the Queen’s will.”

“What of their baby?”

Clarkson shook his head sadly. “The boy Damerei? He has died. The child was born sickly.”

Shakespeare shivered. “Was there any suggestion of foul play, Mr. Clarkson?”

“Not that I have heard, sir.”

Shakespeare arched his aching back and winced. It seemed to him that he had spent two weeks on horseback. His shoulder was healing well but his saddle-sore inner thighs were as ill-used as a Southwark whore’s. Now another ride beckoned.

“If I may prevail upon you, Mr. Clarkson, I would be grateful for food, a bed, and a fresh horse for the ride west. My gray mare has done more than enough these past days.”

Clarkson stopped him with his outstretched palm. “Do not think of going down there, Mr. Shakespeare. Sir Robert received your message from Hardwick Hall and commanded me to tell you that he will see you on his return.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“He says that he trusts you have the evidence. That is all.”

T HE STREETS OF LONDON were overgrown with weeds. Flies buzzed around the dogs that lay dead on every corner. Rats scuttled unhindered along the clogged drainage kennels. Rosemary and other herbs had been scattered about in a pathetic attempt to cleanse the air of the plague miasma. The pestilence was doing its foul work regardless. People still went about their daily business, but in fewer numbers. Those who did not have to leave their homes didn’t. Those who had enough gold had left for their country estates long ago. And each day the plague men dragged more cartloads of corpses to the mass graves.

Shakespeare found Simon Forman in remarkably good spirits at Stone House in Fylpot Street. He seemed tired, but otherwise healthy. The astrologer-physician welcomed his visitor with a warm shake of the hand.

“It is good to see someone who does not have the pestilence, Mr. Marvell. I spend all day every day tending to them and dispensing my miraculous tinctures.”

“Indeed, Dr. Forman. I trust they are more miraculous than your charts, for you were certainly wrong about the death of a certain person of high rank-and you could not have chosen a more inauspicious day for a wedding.”

Forman grinned broadly, his generous red lips creasing apart in the small gap between his bushy golden red beard and mustache. “And I am the happiest man in England that my chart erred concerning the great lady, but nor am I surprised-for is she not the sun itself, and do not the very stars trace their paths about her elegant and stately progress?”

“Admit it, Forman. Your charts are as worthless as your potions and ointments. Ash of little green frogs? You prey on gulls, sir.”

Forman shrugged his wide shoulders, still grinning. “I had taken you to be a skeptic, Mr. Marvell. But I tell you this: I was right about my plague cure-for, see, I am hale and my heart is strong. Not only that, but the French welcome is gone, too.” In truth, he felt himself not only healthy but never happier; women flocked to him for haleking, deciding they must make the most of this world today, for tomorrow they might be in the hereafter. He was also proving himself a real physician who could bring comfort and the occasional cure to the sick. “I am not like those coney-hunters at the College of Physicians who have hounded me without mercy for so many years and are nowhere to be seen now that the people need them. I cured myself and now I take my electuaries to the sick and suffering, be they drabs or gong farmers, and, with God’s grace, I heal many. Only one in five survives, they say, but I do better than that.”

“I am pleased to hear it. I will be even more pleased when you give me what I have come for. And my name is not Marvell but Shakespeare. Strange, is it not, that your charts were unable to reveal that? Now, give me the charts I require and I promise you that you will have immunity from prosecution and all the protection you need from the College of Physicians.”

Forman hesitated. “I wonder,” he asked tentatively, “would you be able to supply me with a letter of patent from Sir Robert? He is not the only powerful man in the land and nor is he immune to the ravages of disease or accidental death. If I take his part in this, I will surely be most unpopular with others. I must think of the future and what would become of me if anything were to happen to him, Mr. Shakespeare.”

“You will have no such letter. But I say again-if you do not supply the charts, you will be in Newgate before this day is done. And the pursuivants I send will destroy every last book, vial, and instrument that you own.”

“Mr. Shakespeare, please…”

“And I will require an affidavit with your mark upon it to show that you did cast these charts, and for whom you cast them.”

“No, you cannot ask me to do that!”

“Then good-day to you, Dr. Forman. Mr. Topcliffe will be here with a squadron before day’s end.” Much as he loathed Topcliffe, Shakespeare knew the power of his name. Where once men spoke of the rack or the manacles or the branding iron, now they simply referred to “Topcliffean practices.”

Shakespeare saw the fear burning bright in Forman’s eyes. “I wonder, Dr. Forman, about the tinctures you supplied for the sickness lately endured by my lord of Essex’s wife, the lady Frances? She said you supplied her with potions to rid her of the little flying things she saw. What, exactly, were they? Wing of sparrow, toe of faerie?”

“Mr. Shakespeare, please. I beg you…”

“Or were they, perhaps, essence of wolfsbane, Dr. Forman?”

Forman held his hand to his chest as though his heart would seize. “Never, sir. Never. I would never be party to such a thing. My mission is to heal, not kill.”

“What, then? We know of your alliance with enemies who tried to poison her, Dr. Forman. You dabble in alchemy-you had the means to acquire whatever they desired. And that thing was wolfsbane. I do believe she was