now.’
‘Well, you are safe.’
‘And he will be most grateful to you, Mr Sarjent, for saving me from certain death. As am I…’
Sarjent was silent for a moment. It had not escaped Boltfoot’s notice as he spoke that Sarjent’s hand was close to his belt where he kept his wheel-lock and his dagger. The hand hovered there, like a kestrel fluttering the tips of its wings, as if deciding whether to swoop on a shrew or move on to tastier prey. The hand moved on and took the flagon back from Boltfoot. ‘That is good, very good,’ Sarjent said at last. ‘It is fortunate that I was able to help, as I once saved Captain-General Norris on the field of blood. Did I ever tell you of that day?’
‘No, Mr Sarjent, I do not believe you did. Perhaps you would tell it to me now, while I drift off to sleep, for I need rest.’ There was another question that Boltfoot wished answered, but he would not ask it. He wanted to know why, if there was an imminent threat of insurrection, did they not simply descend this hill to the creek below and enlist the aid of some passing fishermen to get them to London without delay. He did not ask him because he knew the answer. He smiled wanly at his companion. ‘I trust you will understand that I need to sleep, Mr Sarjent. If you must go, leave me here to rest. Otherwise stay and let us move from this place at dawn.’
Shakespeare felt a cloud of fear descend. The hellburners of Antwerp. He knew of them. ‘Nick, this is terrifying to think on…’
‘But it could make sense. You say they have five thousand pounds or more powder. That could be used for a series of attacks like the Dutch market outrage, or one so huge that it would shake England to its very foundations. If Philip wanted vengeance for Antwerp and for the Armada, if he wanted to sow discord and create havoc, what better weapon?’
‘Maybe more than five thousand pounds. How much powder was used in the hellburners?’
‘Seven thousand pounds in each, all topped up with slabs of stone, ploughshares, scythes, sickles, rusting iron and nails, sharpened staves. It was the most deadly weapon ever conceived. A thousand or more Spaniards died in a single blast. The roar was heard fifty miles away. They were still finding the scattered bodies many months later.’
‘God’s blood. If that is what they have planned for us…’
‘It is only surmise…’
‘But as you say, Nick, it makes sense.’
Henbird wiped his nightshirt sleeve across his mouth. The aroma of brandy hung heavy in this fine chamber. A servant arrived with cold cuts of various fowl, slices of manchet bread, some cold beef and kidney pudding. Shakespeare had lost his hunger, but he accepted a platter with good grace.
‘Eat, John, eat. You need strength. Do you know of Federigo Giambelli?’
‘I know of him. We have never met.’
‘But you know he is in England, yes?’
Shakespeare nodded. Giambelli was the engineer from Lombardy who had devised the infernal hellburner machine for the Dutch defenders of Antwerp. He was now in the pay of the English, engaged on various defensive works around London and the south coast. ‘But where — here in London?’
‘Sometimes. I believe he is presently on the Isle of Wight, completing the Carisbrooke earthworks. I am pleased to count him a friend. But more importantly than that, I know with whom he deals. In particular I know a clockmaker who has worked with him and will certainly understand the workings of such a device as was used at Antwerp and, more recently, at the Dutch market. After you were dismissed from Walsingham’s service, Giambelli and this clockmaker were engaged by Mr Secretary to design and build a series of defensive hellburners. Nothing ever came of the plan, for the Queen refused to outlay the money needed, and then Mr Secretary died. But if anyone will know about timing devices, this clockmaker will be the man. His name is Peter Gulden — Gulden of Gutter Lane. That is but a few streets from here. We can go to him at first light.’
Shakespeare understood. As he picked at the food, he summoned up his recollections of the Hellburners, or Hellebranders as the Dutch knew them. In the spring of 1585, messages from the Low Countries to Walsingham’s intelligence network in London had been hot with news of them. They had come into existence at a time when the Duke of Parma, general of the Spanish armies in the Low Countries, was besieging Antwerp and had built a barrier of ships across the river Scheldt to stop supplies reaching the city.
Federigo Giambelli was there. He was an ambitious military engineer from Mantua who had tried to sell his expertise to King Philip, but had been rebuffed. Now he offered his services to the city of Antwerp, believing he had a way to break through this impenetrable siege barrier. Ordinary fireships — ships piled high with firewood and set ablaze — would be too easily doused by the Spanish soldiers guarding the barricade. Giambelli’s hellburners would be a different proposition. And the city fathers of Antwerp agreed to his plan.
Two seventy-ton ships, the Fortune and the Hope, were appropriated for the purpose. Giambelli had these vessels stripped down, then built enormous chambers deep in their holds. Shakespeare tried to imagine how they looked. He had heard that the chambers were like funnels, built of brick and stone — forty feet long and three feet in diameter. The chambers were packed solid with good corned gunpowder. More stone slabs and old scrap metal were piled high above the chambers to compact the powder and maximise the blast. False decks were then built above the huge bombs so that the Spanish would not know them from the far less dangerous fireships they had encountered in the past.
As Shakespeare recalled it, the last problem Giambelli faced was how to light the powder. In one of the ships, the Fortune, he used a slow-burning taper. He saved his masterstroke for the other vessel, the Hope. For this one, he enlisted the aid of a local clockmaker, who designed a timing device that would bring down a lever at a given time, soon after the ship had drifted into the Spanish barricade. This lever would turn a serrated steel wheel — much like a wheel-lock pistol — sending a shower of sparks into the powder.
When the ships were ready, the Dutch sent ordinary fireships towards the barricade, as a decoy. These were easily extinguished by the Spanish, who were much amused by the feeble efforts of the Dutch. Then came the hellburners, disguised as fireships by the burning of a few smoke-belching twigs and branches on their decks. The Fortune drifted into the riverbank and its fuse fizzled out. The Hope, however, reached its target. The unsuspecting Spanish swarmed all over it with their pails of water. And then the clock lever dropped, steel span against flint and sparks flew into powder…
‘One thousand dead?’
‘Possibly more, John. But some believe the effects were far greater than that. Signor Giambelli insists that his hellburners gave England victory over the Spanish Armada.’
‘Surely no hellburners were involved?’
‘No, but the Spanish did not know that. When the English sent commonplace fireships towards the Armada near Calais, the Spanish convinced themselves they must be hellburners. They were in utter terror — panic ensued. The Spanish dispersed and were never able to regroup in good order. That, asserts Signor Giambelli, is how the battle was won for Drake and England.’
‘Let us go to clockmaker Gulden now. We cannot afford to wait.’
‘It is mere conjecture, John,’ Henbird replied, ‘but you are right, of course.’
Shakespeare gazed on Henbird’s black-bruised face. ‘I will go, Nick. You stay here. Return to your sickbed.’
The watchman, lantern in hand, called the hour of eleven and eyed Shakespeare with suspicion. ‘Where are you going after curfew, master? Only whores and thieves are abroad at this time of night.’
‘Queen’s business,’ Shakespeare said sharply. ‘You can light my way.’
The watchman, a stocky fellow of middle years, grumbled, suddenly unsure of himself. ‘Find your own way,’ he said and turned away.
Shakespeare grabbed him by the collar of his thick woollen jerkin. ‘No, you light my way. Take me to Gutter Lane.’
The watchman, half a foot shorter than Shakespeare and ten years older, considered for a moment whether to summon other members of the watch for assistance. Instead, grudgingly, he shuffled forward as ordered. It was only a few hundred yards eastward and took them little more than ten minutes. The house was in darkness. Shakespeare banged his dagger haft at the door and kept banging until it was answered by a nervous-looking serving girl in her nightgown and cap.
‘I am here to talk with Peter Gulden.’
The girl stood well back from them. ‘He sleeps, master.’
