is the island.’
‘Canvey,’ the fisher said.
‘There is a series of creeks on its northern shore. The hellburner is moored in one of them. At low tide it will be stranded in the mud; but with this tide coming in it won’t be long before she floats.’
‘When were you last here?’
‘Two days since. It was not fully prepared; they were still loading the powder. They had men working on it, Scottish men. Carting aboard bricks and slabs of stone and rusted iron tools. It must be near completion. My work on the clock is finished. It is my best work
… I was told its success would bring my family to me. Now I pray you will destroy it before more harm is done.’
‘What are they planning for it?’
Gulden seemed about to speak, but then shook his head. ‘I do not know.’
‘You were about to say something, Mr Gulden. I suggest you say it before I spill your blood in the Thames.’
‘I did hear something… something I do not think I was meant to hear.’
‘Yes?’
‘Laveroke was with Sarjent. I heard them talk of a bridge. That is all. I straightway thought of the great London bridge…’
London Bridge. What better target for an enemy of England. Shakespeare shuddered. If a hellburner had killed a thousand men aboard a boom of wooden ships across the Scheldt, what might one of similar size do to this bridge, the greatest such structure in the world? Countless numbers would die and it would blow London in two, cutting the city off from Southwark for months or years to come. If true, it was a plot of nightmares.
London Bridge. The glory of England, a spectacle that men and women travelled from the far corners of the globe to set eyes on. Less a bridge than a small town. Many of the city’s greatest houses, some seven storeys high, were supported by its nineteen stone arches. More than a hundred and thirty of the finest shops lined its nine- hundred-foot span. It had once even had its own church, the chapel of St Thomas Becket, standing atop the central section, but the Protestants had closed it and turned it into a fine dwelling for a merchant. And at the southern end, the gatehouse with its piked heads of traitors, a symbol of unforgiving power to all who harboured treasonous thoughts about their monarch. The irony of that was not lost on Shakespeare.
London Bridge. Above all, it was a thoroughfare that carried the lifeblood of the city, the beating heart of England. Constantly in use, throughout the day. At its busiest times, it might bear the weight of two to three thousand people, along with their wagons, horses and driven farm beasts. How many men, women and children would die if a hellburner wrought its malign work there, blowing them to pieces or sweeping them into the river’s flood? It was enough to make any man quake with fear and anger.
As they tacked into an inlet to the east of the island, Shakespeare was thinking fast. He had little idea what to expect at this place. Gulden said there had been men here when last he came. But who would be here this day, and how would they be armed? He had two wheel-lock pistols and a pouch of a dozen balls and a horn of powder. Apart from that, he had his sword and poniard. It was little enough.
‘See that tower over there?’ said Gulden, pointing to a ruin. ‘We are not far off now.’
‘Moor here, Master fisher,’ Shakespeare said.
‘This place is naught but mud and sheep, master.’
‘I would dearly wish it so.’
The fisher brought the boat in close to shore. Shakespeare jumped out and found himself sinking in thick clay up to his ankles. The incoming waves lapped around his legs. He pulled Gulden out after him, by his collar. Stumbling, Gulden toppled headlong into the turbid surf. Shakespeare left him to struggle to his feet and turned to the fisher. ‘I would ask you to stay here. You already have my gold…’
‘I’ll be here, master. I have ears. I heard what was said.’
‘Good man. I need one more thing from you — rope.’
The fisher gave Shakespeare a coil of mooring cord, which he curled around his shoulder. Then he primed and loaded a pistol and pushed its muzzle into Gulden’s dripping face. ‘Which direction?’
‘We follow the shoreline a little north, then westward, in the lea of this hillock. I sailed there before. That castle — ’ he nodded towards the ruined tower, at the top of the incline — ‘that was used by them as a storage space and shelter.’
‘Walk.’
They trudged for quarter of an hour across the flat, desolate land. Even in this dry summer, the earth was boggy and the two men walked around dark pools, seeing nothing but seabirds. Gulden walked ahead, his back arched, knowing all the while that Shakespeare’s wheel-lock was pointed at him. To their right, the tower of the castle loomed. There was no sign of any human life. Suddenly Gulden stopped and pointed. ‘There.’
Shakespeare followed Gulden’s finger. He could see the tip of a mast about two furlongs off. He thrust the pistol into his belt. ‘Lie down, on your face. Hands behind you.’
Without ceremony, he uncurled the rope and bound Gulden, hands and feet. He wrenched the rope tight, painfully tight, then knelt beside him in the marshy grass. ‘If I survive, so might you. If I die, then you will waste and perish here. And no one will mourn you, Mr Gulden. The wind will blow through your bones for evermore, and no one will know that you are here, nor care. Not a soul on earth, nor God in heaven for what you have done…’
‘Forgive me, Mr Shakespeare.’
Shakespeare said nothing. He could no more forgive Gulden than he could forgive the man who had taken the casks of powder to the Dutch market. For a moment, he thought of gagging Gulden, but that would have been a cruelty too far and would have likely brought death. Anyway, he wasn’t going to cry out.
Shakespeare moved forward more cautiously. A little way off, to the left of the castle, he saw a copse of stunted trees and, from within it, a thin trail of smoke drifting skyward. Moving at a crouch now, he ran towards the thicket, a wheel-lock once again in his hand. From here he had a better view of the landscape. He could see the ship clearly. There were men moving about its decks. One or two others were ashore. The vessel was almost afloat with the rising of the tide.
He found the ashes of a fire in a clearing in the middle of the spinney. The earth was greatly disturbed. He shuddered at the sight of an empty, mud-thick coffin and a hole that looked like a grave. What in God’s name had been happening here? There was more evidence that someone had been here recently: a hunk of bread, an empty flagon, tatters of charred clothing, sticks of burnt wood.
Coming out of the woods, he made his way to the ruin of the castle, keeping behind the brow of the hill as far as possible so that he would not be observed from below. He approached the ruins at a crouch. There was an old flagon. A rat was gnawing at some discarded food and ignored his approach.
Shakespeare gasped involuntarily. Boltfoot Cooper’s caliver and cutlass were there. So Boltfoot had been here. He would not have left of his own accord without these weapons. Shakespeare picked them up. He had to do something, and fast.
He descended the incline towards the ship. If anyone looked up, he must be visible now. Close to the creek, he dropped to his belly, crawling forward to the raised bank of the creek. Looking over the grassy lip, he could see the mudflats sloping away down to the dark channel of water where the vessel rode. The ship was larger than he had expected. The Hope at Antwerp had been seventy tons, but from his knowledge he guessed this ship to be a bark displacing perhaps a hundred and twenty tons. Small enough at about sixty feet to negotiate these narrow waters, but large enough to carry many tons of gunpowder. It was afloat, but its painters were still secured. One plank from the gangway stretched down to a makeshift quay of old wooden struts driven into the mud.
Two men stood on the decking at the landward end of the plank. They were deep in conversation. From this distance, perhaps a hundred yards, he could make out their features clearly but did not recognise either of them. One was tall with a black beard, thin eyes and a military bearing. He had a scabbed nose. Shakespeare had heard of Sarjent suffering such an injury at the hands of Boltfoot. The other man was larger of body, with an enormous barrel chest, though not as tall as his companion. Shakespeare stared at them a few moments, buried as well as he could be in the tufts of grass. From the descriptions given him by Peter Gulden, it seemed entirely possible that the men were Sarjent and Quincesmith. His gaze drifted to the ship. Emblazoned on its prow was the word Sieve. Amidships he saw shapes, figures moving about. Eight or nine men, strangely attired in black. What could he do against such a band?
