He guessed she was ten or eleven, but it was difficult to be sure. Her long fair hair was matted with filth, and yet he could see that her skin was clear of the dread buboes. One in five survived, Forman had said. Well, she must be blessed.
She held back from him. “You will die if you touch me, sir,” she said in a quiet voice.
“No. You are well, child. Your skin is clear.”
“I saw death, but the Lord turned me away.”
“Are there any others alive here?”
She shook her head.
“Then the Lord wants you to live. Come to me. Come from this place.”
She stepped closer to him. He reached out his hand. She stared at it from beneath the sun shield of her right palm, then looked up at him, her eyes creased against the light. Their eyes met. Shakespeare smiled at her. “Come, child,” he said again, reaching out further and taking her left hand. “All will be well.” She allowed him to take her hand. It felt tiny to him. Gently, he led her from the front door out into the daylight.
The apprentice had returned. “I heard you talking. Here…” He held out a flagon and a crust of bread. “She’ll need food and drink.”
“Thank you,” Shakespeare said. “You are a good boy.”
As the boy went back to the foundry, Shakespeare led the girl across the road to the hay bale from where McGunn’s men had been watching the house, and sat her down. “Take a drink, child.”
She gnawed at the bread and sipped ale from the flagon. “They left food and water for us, but the food did run out.”
“How long were you there?”
“I do not know, sir. Perhaps eight days, nine… night and day were the same, for the windows were all boarded. And I do not know how long I had the fever. The Lord took my sister and mother and father.”
The girl did not weep for her family. Shakespeare realized she was still too full of horror.
“What is your name, child?”
“Matilda, sir. I will be eleven years of age on Christmas Day.”
“Matilda, there was another man in there with you. The man who lies dead in the hall. Did you know him?”
“His name was Mr. Winterberry. He was nailed in with us, sir. We did not know him until then. They brought him here, bound and struggling. They wore bird masks and were laughing as they threw him down, then closed the door on us. We were all sick at that time, but we unbound him. He seemed untouched by the pestilence and said he should not be there, that it was murder. He was sore troubled, but I think he was a good man.”
“Why do you say that?”
“When I became more sick, he did nurse me through my fever. Brought water to cool my brow when I was burning hot, and fed me when the fever passed. Then he became sick, too.”
“You said he was sore troubled?”
“He wept and said he was a vile sinner and that he deserved to die. He prayed and prayed. I did not understand all he said. Things like corruption of the flesh, guilt without end. He begged forgiveness and beat his fist against his forehead.” She lifted her gaze to Shakespeare. “Did you know him, sir? Was he a good man?”
“I did know him, Matilda. But I do not know if he was a good man.” He thought back to the incident on the quayside at Indies Wharf, when the cask fell and nearly killed him. Perhaps Winterberry had wanted him dead, to put an end to his investigations. His Puritan coldness hid deep passions. Sir Walter Ralegh had hinted at ships lost at sea. Certainly, Winterberry’s investment in Roanoke had come to nothing. It was possible he was not so wealthy.
Yet it was not financial ruin but the jealousy and rage of the cuckold-a story as old as man-that had finally done for him and brought tragedy on the Le Neves. “God will judge.” He smiled at the girl. “Now,” he said, “what are we to do with you? Do you have relatives who might take you in?”
She shook her head. “No, sir.”
His thoughts suddenly turned to Cordelia Le Neve, who had once had a sister named Matilda. She was all alone now. Perhaps…
“I think I might know just the place for you, Matilda. Just the place.”
Chapter 48
T HE DAY WAS BRIGHT AND AUTUMNAL. THERE WERE no church bells, but there was hope in the air; hope that the chillier weather would bring an end to the plague, or at least slow down its ravages.
John Shakespeare and his wife walked side by side along the leaf-strewn streets of Greenwich. They were going to a wedding. Shakespeare did not wish to go, but his wife, although apprehensive, had insisted. He had shrugged his shoulders and agreed. His marriage was strong and loving once more; he did not want to threaten its stability by gainsaying Catherine over something as trifling as a wedding.
As they arrived at the church porch, all bedecked with autumn flowers and foliage, Shakespeare stayed his wife. “Wait. See who is there.”
He raised his head. Across the way, he could see Justice Young, the magistrate of London, and Newall, the chief pursuivant, both close associates of Topcliffe.
Catherine’s mouth turned down in distaste. She knew those faces well. She knew that, like Topcliffe, they would happily hang her and every other Catholic.
“We should go,” Shakespeare said. “This was a bad idea. I want no part of it.”
“No, John, we must stay.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded firmly. “I am sure.”
They walked into the plain church. Twenty or thirty people, mostly men, sat on wooden chairs. Briefly, they turned around to see the newcomers. Shakespeare recognized Thomas Fitzherbert, a pursuivant. Catherine spotted Pickering, the lumbering Gatehouse gaoler. He was mopping the sweat from his brow, though the day was not hot.
“This is not a church of God but of the Devil,” Shakespeare said, dismayed.
“Sit down, John. We must stay, though it break my heart.”
They sat toward the rear of the little church. In place of the altar, there was a bare table. The colored windows had all been smashed and replaced by clear panes. The place was bleak, without hope or joy.
A murmur disturbed the stillness. The bridegroom was coming in. His wedding finery could do nothing to disguise the fact that he was a thick-set ruffian with slimed hair, thin beard, and leering smile: Topcliffe’s apprentice Nicholas Jones, now to be a married man. He smirked at John Shakespeare.
“Poor Anne,” Catherine said, shaking her head sadly as Jones and his bent and watery-eyed father, Basforde Jones, walked up the aisle to await the bride. She had been driven mad through ill-usage by Topcliffe and Jones, scarce able to admit to herself the enormity of what she had done to her family and Father Robert Southwell, who now languished in solitary confinement in the Tower, almost forgotten.
The first Shakespeare and Catherine saw of Anne Bellamy was her swollen belly. She was heavy with child and waddled in, head bowed, shoulders slumped. She had put on a lot of weight since Catherine last saw her, much of it due to her appetite rather than the child. Her voluminous dress, with slashed sleeves and protruding stomacher, was brown and murrey and studded with gemstones at the wrists. In the absence of her father, she was on the arm of Richard Topcliffe. He was dressed in black with silver-thread trimmings to his velvet doublet. He strode in, proud and pugnacious, swinging his silver-tipped blackthorn.
Together, Topcliffe and the bride walked to the front of the church, where she stopped beside her intended and smiled at him. Topcliffe looked around at the gathered congregation. It seemed for a moment as though he would take a bow, like a player on stage. Then he grinned at Shakespeare and Catherine and turned to face the front, where the parson waited to perform the ceremony.
Catherine tried to stand up, to stop this mockery of a wedding, but her husband motioned her to sit down.
