now. I am going to kiss my children in their cots, get five hours of slumber, then return to my inquiries.’
‘I care not a turd for your sleep, Shakespeare. Tell me where the man is and I shall go to him alone.’
‘No, Mr Bruce. Return at dawn and we will discuss a strategy then.’
Bruce showed no sign of taking his leave, nor of letting the matter rest. ‘I am going nowhere. I was promised your cooperation, and I shall have it.’
‘Indeed you shall. On the morrow. I bid you goodnight. Sleep here on the settle if you wish.’ Shakespeare drank his wine and strode from the room, for if he had stayed any longer, he might well have run the Scotsman through.
Boltfoot lay tense beneath the hopharlot, waiting for those around him to drift into sleep. He thought of Jane at home, fearing for him, and he thought of the baby. Never before had he cared much whether he lived or died, for he knew the world would not notice either way. But now… now he needed to stay alive for his wife and for little, helpless John Cooper, just eight months old and beginning to crawl about the floor to his father’s delight.
Soon he heard the heavy snoring of exhausted men. He got up and stood silently for a few moments. If any challenged him, he would say he needed a piss.
No one stirred. A glimmer of moonlight came in through the unshuttered window. He picked up his cutlass and thrust it in his belt, then slung his caliver over his back. Despite his club foot, he could move with surprising agility and grace when required. He picked his way through the slumbering mass of bodies, step by step. At last he was at the doorway and looked out into the stairwell. It was darker there and he could see almost nothing. But he had memorised the number of steps. Nine between each floor, thirty-six in all. He remembered, too, that most of them creaked like an ungreased church door.
Slowly he lowered his weight from stair to stair. He could not eliminate all the sounds of the aged wood, yet he minimised them. The house was noisy even without his footfalls, for men snored and farted on every floor and the old building groaned as it settled into the night. These sounds muffled his own movements.
He reached the first floor. From behind a door he heard the soft voices of two men. He did not move, straining his ears to hear them. He could not make out the words, but fancied they were Scottish accents. Why would there be Scotsmen here? It was difficult to imagine that the men in this house, so zealous in their desire to rid England of strangers, would welcome the presence of those from north of the border. He pushed the thought to one side. There were more important matters at hand.
Boltfoot carried on down the stairs, even more slowly than before. Now he was on the ground floor, in a small hallway between the workshop at the front of the house and the refectory at the back, where they had taken their victuals and heard the address of Holy Trinity Curl. The doors to both rooms were closed. From beneath the door to the refectory, a thin light danced. Had some fool left a candle alight in there, or was the room still occupied? He had to remain silent. He lifted the latch to the door leading the other way, into the workshop. The latch clicked. It was only a little sound, but to Boltfoot it sounded like a clap of thunder.
He closed his eyes, breathed deeply, then pushed the door open. Immediately, he fell back a step, for he found that this room, too, was lit — and that he was confronted by three men. One lounged against the workbench, another stood with wheel-lock pistol in hand scarcely a yard in front of him. Another loitered in the shadows close to the door to the street.
‘Very good, Mr Cooper, very good indeed. If we had not been here waiting for you, I do reckon you might have slipped away into the night, for you were as quiet as a tiny mouse.’
It was Ellington Warboys who spoke. He was the man with the wheel-lock trained full on Boltfoot’s heart. The man lounging against the workbench was Curl. He was holding a small penny candle, which was all the light they had. The third, the one near the door now stepped out from the shadows. It was the man whose eyes he had met in the refectory, the man he couldn’t place.
‘I think he still does not recall me, Mr Curl,’ the man said. He looked towards Boltfoot and shook his head. ‘But I recall you well enough, Mr Cooper, for I was there when you saved your master, Mr Shakespeare, from Mr Topcliffe at the Sluyterman house, where I was a manservant. My name is Oliver Kettle. Do you not remember me now?’
‘If he does not remember you yet, Mr Kettle, we shall give him cause,’ Curl said. ‘For any friend of Sluyterman’s is an enemy of mine.’
‘How did you know of us?’ Warboys demanded.
‘All London knows of you.’
‘No, that’s not so. Who led you to St Botolph?’
Boltfoot said nothing.
‘And how much does Shakespeare know?’ Warboys demanded.
Again, Boltfoot said nothing.
‘Has he heard of us? Have you told him of us?’
Kettle stepped forward and lashed his forearm across Boltfoot’s face. Boltfoot stumbled but did not fall, nor did he cry out.
‘Talk!’
‘Aye,’ Boltfoot said. ‘He knows of you. He sent me here and has this place watched.’
‘I don’t believe him,’ Warboys said. ‘But we have to be sure.’
‘Kill him,’ Kettle said.
Warboys shook his head. ‘If we kill him, we won’t know. And we must know. Give him to me, Mr Curl. I’ll soften him so he has no strength left to dissemble.’
‘Cut his balls off,’ Kettle said. ‘That’ll make him talk. Then slit his throat.’
Curl pondered a moment. ‘I agree with Mr Warboys,’ he said finally. ‘We need to know this. Take him to Canvey, Mr Warboys. Give him to your fine Scottish friends and let them practise their necromancing on him. It will keep them amused, and they have worked hard. Can a man be dead and buried and talk? They do tell me such a thing can be done, for they have seen it in the churchyards of Tranent. If they be right, then we shall find all we need to know. They say a man who has seen his own death does not know what it is to lie…’
Shakespeare woke at dawn as the first of the grey light slipped in the gap between the shutters.
Instinctively, he reached out his hand for Catherine and recoiled at the touch of the cold sheet. He had not dreamed of her. His sleep had been short and empty. He sat up in bed gasping for breath. Another day to get through, another day without her. His eyes felt heavy and his throat was raw.
Rabbie Bruce was already at the table eating meats and yesterday’s bread when Shakespeare came through. The children were there, too, seemingly unnerved by this spectre in their midst. Only Andrew had the boldness to ask the stranger in the curious attire who he was.
‘Have you heard of Scotland, laddie?’
Andrew nodded.
‘Well that’s me. From the dark north where witches eat children.’ He laughed, then looked up to see Shakespeare standing there. ‘I was amusing your bairns, Shakespeare. And I rifled your larder.’
‘So I see.’ Shakespeare’s voice was sharp.
‘So you have done with sleeping at last. Good. Time to shift your mangy English arse.’
‘I have no intention of going to Glebe this day, and certainly not with you, Mr Bruce. I have more pressing business.’
Bruce glared at him a moment. ‘You know, Shakespeare,’ he said at last. ‘I think you might wish to remove your children from this room before I say what I have to say, lest their tender ears be offended by the lewdness of my language.’
Shakespeare touched Andrew’s shoulder lightly. ‘Take Grace and Mary to Jane. Tell her I am not to be disturbed for a little while.’
Andrew bridled, as if to say I’m twelve now, not a small child. You should not dismiss me so. But he said nothing and took the younger childen away. Shakespeare went to the keg and poured himself a beaker of ale. He drank half of the cup quickly, then wiped his sleeve across his mouth. ‘You had something to say, Mr Bruce? Make it sharp.’
‘Do you know who you talk to?’
He thought to say A worm in a plague dog’s gut, a weevil, something scraped on to the sole of my shoe. But he stayed his tongue.
‘You have no notion what is at stake here. One day, soon, King James the Sixth of Scotland will be King
