‘Wake him. This is Queen’s business.’
She scuttled off into the house. Shakespeare dismissed the watchman, then stepped into the hall. It was a large, well-appointed room. Clockmaker Gulden was clearly a wealthy man.
He appeared shortly, pulling on a doublet over a hastily applied shirt and breeches. The clockmaker was a tall, weak-built man with high cheekbones and almost no hair on his pate. He wore a beard, trimmed short, but no moustache. He looked as if he had spent too many long hours stooped over a workbench, eye fixed to a magnifying glass, working at his intricate springs, pallets and toothed wheels.
‘Peter Gulden?’
‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘But who are you, sir?’
‘My name is John Shakespeare. I am an officer with Sir Robert Cecil. I apologise for waking you at such an hour, but I have important business with you.’
Gulden clearly had been in the depths of sleep for he rubbed his eyes and stretched his aching back. He had a good-humoured but worried face, with blue eyes that might have twinkled had he not been so sleepy. ‘What sort of business could Sir Robert have with me, Mr Shakespeare? I am a clockmaker.’ His brow creased in bemusement.
‘I am told you worked with Signor Giambelli on a project to build English hellburners.’
Gulden nodded. ‘That is true, yes. In the late eighties. But it came to nothing.’
‘You were working on the timing devices?’
‘I was.’
‘I can tell you, sir — though it is not to be repeated — that the recent gunpowder blast in the Dutch market involved a timing device.’
‘That is deeply shocking, Mr Shakespeare. I had no idea.’
‘Are you Dutch, sir?’
‘I am, yes, but I have been here for years.’
‘You must know most of the clockmakers of London.’
‘Indeed, I am sure I know them all. There are no more than twelve of us to my knowledge.’
‘Could any of them have made a timing device such as the one used in the market?’
‘Why, all of them would be capable, I am sure. With patience, such a thing would not be demanding for one versed in the clockmaker’s art, certainly not one experienced in constructing domestic table clocks. The hardest part would be making the timing device accurate enough to operate within a minute or so of the required time. Too quick and the attacker might be blown up, too slow and the device could be discovered and disabled.’
‘Give me a name, Mr Gulden. Of the dozen clockmakers you know, who might do such a thing? Who would attack your people?’
‘Oh, Mr Shakespeare, what a question!’
‘But one that must be answered.’
‘It is not something I have ever considered.’
‘Consider it now.’
‘Well, I suppose none of the Dutch. There are four of us, all refugies from the endless war. Nor the Huguenot, Sieur Josselin. Never was there a more kindly man. One of the English, I suppose, for was it not an attack on strangers?’
‘What are their names?’
Gulden suddenly put his hand to his mouth. ‘You know, Mr Shakespeare, I have just had a terrible thought. I believe I may know the man you want.’
‘Yes?’ Shakespeare was impatient now.
‘He is a man I have had much trouble with over the years. He has accused me of taking his trade, for when I first came to London my premises were within two doors of his in Goldsmiths Row. He has insulted me in the street in the worst, most ungodly language and has had his apprentices throw stones through my windows and at my servants. I think he resents all strangers, perhaps because his clocks are so poor in comparison to ours. He has never built other than church-tower clocks of iron and steel, but wishes to learn our ways with finer machines…’
‘But you believe this man has the skill necessary to make a timing device?’
‘Oh yes, most certainly. He has learned enough.’
‘His name, Mr Gulden, give me his name and where I may find him.’
‘His name is Walter Stacker. Like me, he has moved from Goldsmiths Row. You will find him near St Paul’s in Knightrider Street, to the east of the Doctors Commons. It is a poor house. You will know it by the clock on its wall. The time is always wrong.’
Chapter 32
Shakespeare waited in the dark shadows on the other side of the road from the house, observing it, waiting. He was neither tired nor hungry, but alert and expectant. For the first time in days, he felt he was moving, that he might be drawing close, that he would find a way to the men who had killed Catherine.
The occasional flicker of light through the drapes showed that the house was not asleep. Something was happening. Something would happen soon. He could feel it in his blood and in his tingling flesh. He was suffused with energy and a dreadful rage.
The street was almost deserted, save for the occasional night animal, crying for a mate. A pair of late-night revellers in the gowns of lawyers traipsed by but did not see him in the darkness. He was as still as stone, his eyes fixed. At last he saw a light by the window closest to the front door, then the door opened and a figure stepped out. The figure was that of a man. The man hesitated, looked up and down the street, then set off eastwards. Shakespeare followed him, softly, keeping his distance.
He could take the man at any time, but he wanted to see where he was going.
The rented warehouse by the glassworks in Crutched Friars was empty now, save for a drying heap of dung and the two people who stood by the great double door. Laveroke, also known as Baines and by a dozen other names, held a pitch torch and looked about him. All the gunpowder was gone. The air was thick with dust.
‘How many barrels in the end, Mr Laveroke?’
‘Two hundred and ten. Each of a hundred pounds. That must be more than twenty thousand pounds, Dona Ana.’
Ana looked at Laveroke’s handsome face. His teeth shone white. When would she see him again? Another month, another year, five years? It was always pleasant when their paths crossed. He was full of energy, clever, merciless. She was the chief and the thinker, Laveroke the foot soldier and killer.
‘And is it now packed tight in the vessel?
Laveroke laughed. ‘As tight as a bull in a cow. There are no holes in this Sieve.’
Ana did not laugh. ‘We need to be clear now,’ she said. ‘We need to be precise on our roles. Timing is everything. No one must fail. It is a simple plan: an assassination in Scotland, a powder blast, an uprising in London. If each of these three parts succeeds, this tinder-dry island will blaze like a dead oak… and fall.’
The two of them stood in silence a moment. Ana said this was simple, but they both knew the plan had been long in the devising. These two people were the only ones outside the Escorial who understood it in its entirety. Its success depended on no one else understanding it.
Neither Curl and his band of English malcontents, nor the Scots, understood what they were engaged on. Curl and his men believed they were staging a commoners’ revolt, rising up against the hated foreigners and their noble sponsors. The Scots believed they were taking revenge against James for the roasting of their kin. They were all dupes.
‘How fares our Prince Francis Philip?’
Ana Cabral drew a short draught of smoke through her ebony pipe. ‘He is… as well as can be expected. His every need is catered to, as befits a prince of the royal blood of Scotland, England and France.’
‘And yet?’
Ana shrugged her shoulders. ‘What can I say? He is not like other men.’
