her and she will have to tack, even though the tide’s swell will give her a ride. She did look a mighty cumbersome vessel, lumbering low in the water.’
‘She carries a heavy burden of death. Can we catch her?’
‘Given time, aye. But then what will you do? I don’t believe a broadside from your pistols will cause them much consternation.’
‘We’ll fetch Gulden, then head for Gravesend.’
Shakespeare settled back beside the fisher. Boltfoot sat with his back over the low bulwark, his burns soothed by the wind. Shakespeare had inspected the scorching and realised there was nothing he could do but get him to an apothecary. ‘You smell like roast pork, Boltfoot, but I fear you will survive.’
Boltfoot tried to smile, glad of Master Shakespeare’s disrespectful jesting. The last thing he wanted was sympathy.
Gulden lay, bound, in the bottom of the hull, soaking in fish-stinking bilge-water. Shakespeare had tossed him there, saying he would serve as ballast.
In the distance, as they rounded the cape of Blythe Sands, they could make out the sails of a bark, three miles distant. Was that the Sieve?
The harbour-master at Gravesend was a straight-backed former mariner named Winch. He looked at the fishing smack and its occupants with undisguised scorn.
‘Look what the tide brought in today, Mr Adam,’ he said to the man at his side on the dock. ‘Never have I seen such miserable flotsam.’
‘I’d throw them back, Mr Finch.’ James Adam was about forty. He was a man of middling height, with the weathered forehead of a mariner, though the cut of his clothes suggested he was a ship’s officer rather than an ordinary seaman.
‘We need help,’ Shakespeare said, stepping unsteadily from the boat. ‘This is Queen’s business.’
‘And I’m the King of France,’ Winch said.
‘A plague of toads, I know that dismal face,’ Adam said suddenly. ‘I’d recognise that face and that excuse for a foot anywhere. Why, it’s Boltfoot Cooper!’
‘Mr Adam,’ Boltfoot said grimly.
‘Aye, Cooper, I’m your master. Finest ship’s master you ever served under. How in England’s name have you landed here? Are you shipwrecked?’
‘Something like that.’
‘I will explain,’ Shakespeare said, taking Adam’s arm and holding it unnecessarily tight, ‘if you will be silent a minute or two…’
Chapter 36
Luke Laveroke’s hired horse clattered into the cobbled stable-yard behind the Waggoner’s Arms, a post inn a little way south of Derby. He had beaten the horse mercilessly. Its sides were blood-streaked from his sharp- wheeled spurs and it was flecked with sweat. Quickly he dismounted and handed the reins to the ostler.
‘Have a fresh horse saddled for me in three hours,’ he ordered, affecting a French accent.
The ostler looked at the post-horse in dismay. ‘You’ll have no horse from here if you treat him like that, master.’
Laveroke tossed him a gold sovereign. ‘Three hours.’ He strode through into the inn’s taproom and demanded a room with food: roast capon with pickled cabbage and Levant raisins. ‘And half a flagon of good Gascon wine, unsweetened.’
The chamber was on the first floor with a four-poster bed. He removed his dusty boots and lay back on the sheets, his doublet loosened. He would eat quickly, rest without sleeping, then resume his journey. Riding post, he believed he could make Edinburgh in three days. When the Sieve blew, he would be well away from London. No man would outride him to Scotland. The King of Scots would have no knowledge of events in England; his guard would be down and he would be content to meet an envoy — an old friend — from France.
Their meeting would be in the presence-chamber, alone, for he would say he had possession of a secret missive from Henri of Navarre. Laveroke had met James twice before, under another, French name, and he had charmed the monarch with much flattery, extravagant gifts of gold and tales of the French court’s debauchery. The King would welcome him again, but this time Laveroke’s long-bladed dagger would be in his sleeve. It would slide down into his right hand, then sink into James’s soft, unsuspecting belly and drive upwards into his heart. All the while, Laveroke’s left hand would be at the King’s weakling mouth, stifling his cries, holding him close and silent until death. Speed was all. Unhurried speed. Kill, then walk away. Nod to the guards, smile at the courtiers, touch them lightly on the shoulder and bow extravagantly to their ladies, walk without haste, but depart. Then ride eastward like the furies, for North Berwick where the kin of Agnes Sampson and Gellie Duncan would smuggle him aboard a collier-ship to safety.
A girl of seventeen or so arrived with his food and wine. He watched her closely as she lay the tray down upon a table near the window. She looked like any one of the peasant girls he had supplied for Don Antonio. They were all the same to him, all available at the right price, all disposable. He smiled at her and held up a shilling coin for her to take.
Her blue eyes opened wide. A shilling was a week’s wages in this part of England. ‘Thank you, sir.’ She took the coin in her small hand.
‘My pleasure, mam’selle.’
She giggled at the strange tone of his words and the healthy sheen of his handsome face and hair.
‘Will you pour me a cup of wine?’
She bowed again and did so, then brought the cup to him where he lay, reclining on the pillows beneath the bed’s canopy.
‘And a cup for you, mam’selle.’
She reddened. ‘I shouldn’t, sir.’
‘But you will — for me, yes.’ His hand touched her pale arm and she did not move away.
A shy smile crossed her lips. ‘If you wish.’
‘I do.’
‘But there is only one cup, sir.’
‘Then you will have to drink from mine. Here.’ He held it to her rich lips as if she were a communicant. ‘Do you like it?’
She nodded.
‘Sit with me here.’ His arm circled her slender waist and brought her down so that she sat on the edge of the bed.
‘Where are you from, sir? You have a most curious voice.’
‘You do not like it?’
‘No, no, sir, I like it very much.’
‘Today I think I am a sultan from Turkey, and I should like you in my seraglio.’ He held up another coin, a small gold one. ‘This for a kiss, mam’selle.’
‘You do not need to pay me, sir.’ She leaned over and kissed him, quickly, on his bristled cheek.
‘Take the money, please, for I am a wealthy man and you are a beautiful girl.’ Oh, you want the money, he thought, you just do not like the connotation. But you will take the money. I will make it easy for you. ‘It is worth a sovereign just to gaze upon your face. From the Russias to Peru, from the Moluccas to Africa, I swear I never set eyes on such beauty.’
No one had ever called the girl beautiful before. In truth, she had only once seen her face in a looking-glass and had wondered whether she might be fair. Her skin was clear and her eyes were bright. Many men passed this way and sojourned here on their ride north or south, yet she had never met one such as this. She accepted the compliment and, glowing inside from his words, she accepted the coin too.
Rabbie Bruce ate his supper alone in a booth of the Waggoner’s Arms taproom. The young capon was excellent, with crispy, blackened skin and juice running from the flesh. He had seen Laveroke enter the hostelry and
