paid Shakespeare no heed.
‘Here you are, Mr Shakespeare,’ Wilton said pushing a paper and quill to him across a table. ‘Write away.’
Shakespeare wrote a simple note: Sir Robert Cecil would see you with utmost urgency at Greenwich Palace this evening at six of the clock. It will be to your great advantage to be there. He considered adding that a failure to attend would be viewed with utmost disfavour, but decided against it. He folded the paper and handed it to Wilton.
‘I will await a reply.’
‘Not in here you won’t.’
‘I will be by the river. Do not fail me, Mr Wilton. You are not above the law of the land.’
As he strode back through the garden with Wilton two steps behind him, clutching the letter, Shakespeare caught sight of a familiar figure, the Earl of Essex’s beautiful sister Penelope Rich. She saw him at the same time and walked towards him. She had a posy of new-cut flowers in one hand and a small pair of garden scissors in the other.
‘Good day, Mr Shakespeare.’
He bowed. ‘Lady Rich.’
‘I heard-’
He met her black eyes. ‘Please, my lady.’
‘Indeed. I am sorry. Truly sorry, whatever our differences.’
He said nothing.
‘Yet I am surprised to find you here. I had not thought that you would dare come to Essex House again.’
‘I must speak with Don Antonio.’
‘Ah, yes, of course. I understand. My charming little Spaniard is much in demand suddenly.’
‘Would you bring him to me?’
‘I am not certain my brother would like that, Mr Shakespeare. He does not have a good opinion of you.’
‘I have come here openly, on a matter of great import to the realm.’
She looked at him a moment. He recalled a time when he had looked into those dark eyes and wondered whether she might lead him to betray Catherine. He felt none of the stirring now that he had felt then.
She was dressed in a summer gown of light worsted, with an exquisite mulberry bodice and sleeves of yellow gold — a colour which perfectly complemented her abundant fair curls. Even cutting flowers, at home in the garden, she looked a match for any woman in the land. At last she nodded to him and smiled. ‘I will speak with him. Wait here. Mr Wilton, have a footman bring refreshment to Mr Shakespeare.’
Wilton was clearly put out. As Penelope departed indoors, he handed the letter back to Shakespeare. ‘Won’t be needing this. What refreshment would you like? Spirit of monkshood? Henbane beer?’
‘I would not wish to deprive you, Mr Wilton. Common ale will suffice.’
Shakespeare sat in the sun on a garden bench. Within a few minutes, Penelope Rich reappeared. ‘He will be with you presently, Mr Shakespeare. I think it best that you meet here in the garden.’
‘As you wish, my lady.’
She smiled. ‘Though the circumstances are full of sorrow, it has been a pleasure to meet you again.’ She extended her hand.
Shakespeare took her elegant fingers and bowed to kiss them, then watched as she disappeared into the house. He sat and drank the ale that had been brought to him. It was half an hour before Perez finally appeared at the doorway. He stood for a moment on the steps leading down to the garden, blinking like a creature that has been deprived of light suddenly emerging from its hole. He looked small and much reduced. In his tremulous hands, he clutched his gold box, close to his chest. Once again, Shakespeare found it difficult to think that this feeble, insignificant thing had been the most powerful man in the world. He rose from the bench and walked towards the Spaniard.
‘Don Antonio, thank you for coming to me,’ he said slipping more easily into the Spanish tongue than he had at Gaynes Park.
‘Did Pregent’s little Barb filly win her race?’
‘I fear I do not know,’ he said truthfully.
‘No matter. I shall discover soon enough. So, am I correct in thinking Sir Robert has the gold ready for me?’
‘Indeed. I am sure Dona Ana has explained the details to you. But Sir Robert is eager to meet you in person. He will recommend to the Queen that you be received by her in the presence-chamber, without delay.’
‘That is good. Good. But to think I am come to this, begging for a few ducats of gold when once I controlled the treasure fleets from Peru.’
‘I believe it is more than a few ducats, Don Antonio.’
‘But I need riches, Mr Shakespeare. I am not a well man. I ail.’
Shakespeare could not pretend to be either concerned or amused. ‘Can I take you now, perhaps, to Greenwich Palace?’ His voice was brittle. ‘Sir Robert will be there this evening. It is but a short journey by tiltboat.’
‘I am not well enough for such a voyage. Can Sir Robert not come to me?’
‘No you must go to him. He has promised you the gold. He will keep his word.’
Perez hesitated. At last he sighed. ‘You are a man of honour, Mr Shakespeare. If Sir Robert has agreed to pay me the gold, then I must believe he will pay. I shall reveal my secret to you now, and you will bring me my reward. Come.’ He lowered himself on to a bench at the top of the steps and patted the space beside him with his soft white hand. ‘Let us sit here in the glorious sun and I shall tell you a tale of such intrigue that your astounded heart will beat like the sails of a windmill.’
Shakespeare frowned. Perez must surely know that he was already in possession of the secret. All he needed was the whereabouts of the prince. Shakespeare said nothing. Let Perez tell it in his own way, in his own language. The vital thing was that he should offer up the one missing detail.
‘As I have intimated,’ Perez continued, ‘this tale goes back more than twenty years. The events of long ago haunt us still…’
Perez shot Shakespeare a warm smile. ‘Have you heard of Montigny? What I am about to tell you is a state secret of Spain, Mr Shakespeare. A secret so close guarded that none but four outside this garden have ever heard of it — and two of them are now dead. King Philip would hide away with shame were he to hear that I have told you.’
The day was ticking on. Yet Shakespeare was at this man’s mercy. Perez would tell this as he wished, at his own speed.
‘I ask again, do you know of Montigny?’
Montigny? The name registered in some distant recess of his memory, but meant little.
‘From the days of Alba’s tribunal, Mr Shakespeare — the Council of Blood, as it was known in Protestant circles. Montigny was one of the Flemish nobles sentenced to death.’
Ah yes, that was it. Shakespeare’s brow creased deeper. ‘That is ancient history, Don Antonio. What bearing can such an event have on your great secret?’
‘Drink your ale and listen, Mr Shakespeare, and then you will understand. If you convey this to the Basilisk, she will clap her wrinkled, mottled hands and order you to bring me to her. Of that I am sure. But before I go to her, you must be certain to instruct me in her tastes and desires, for I know she will have heard of the wonders I can offer a woman and will wish to sample them.’
Shakespeare was trying to conjure up all he knew of Montigny. Everything had changed since those long-gone days. Back in the late sixties, in a futile attempt to put down the rebellion in the Spanish Netherlands, Philip’s then governor, the Duke of Alba, had set up a notorious court that had become known as the Council of Blood. It had sentenced hundreds, perhaps thousands, of rebels to death. The most infamous executions had been those of the counts Egmont and Hoorn in 1568. Montigny — or, to give him his full title, Floris van Montmorency, Baron of Montigny — was Hoorn’s younger brother. In 1567, he had been sent as an envoy to Spain to plead for reform in the Netherlands and to beg that the Inquisition be kept away. Instead of a royal hearing, he got a cell in a castle dungeon where he later died, largely forgotten, of an ague. So what had any of this to do with Mary, Queen of Scots and a baby born at Lochleven castle?
