Warwickshire?’
‘I don’t care a pail of slurry for them and their parish ways, John. What would I do? Work my backbone bent over a loom or milking cows. If I had never come to London, I would never have tasted fine spices or sipped French wine.’
‘But you won’t be able to carry on this life many more years.’
Beth smiled that sweet smile that had once captured him. ‘Am I losing my looks, sir? Is that a way to speak to a lady?’
She could make him laugh still, which was something in this dark, empty time when it seemed his soul had been torn from his chest.
After eating, he left her and went in search of Jonas Shoe. He found him, asleep with a whore, in a small first-storey room of the inn. Shakespeare shook him awake.
‘Get up, Mr Shoe. You have slept long enough.’
The man was groggy, but managed to swing his thin, hairy legs from beneath the bedcovers. The woman at his side snored on unawares.
Shoe was one of Mills’s hirelings, a foot soldier willing to do anything demanded of him so long as he got booze, beef and a shilling a day. He was short, bald and undistinguished. You would not note him in the crowd at the bear-baiting or among a field full of harvesters, a fine attribute in a man whose work involved following others unseen.
‘I have done my hours of work, Mr Shakespeare. Sawyer’s been out on the late shift, watching since two in the morning.’
‘I don’t want Sawyer. I want you. Have you seen a black woman out at the Old Hall?’
‘A blackamoor? In Surrey?’ Shoe laughed, then coughed as though his lungs would come up through his windpipe. He reached for his pipe and tobacco.
‘Well, Mr Shoe, could such a woman have been taken there?’
‘No. Impossible. We have seen nothing and our watch is constant, night and day.’
‘But you are here, Mr Shoe. How can your watch be constant?’
‘Because Mr Sawyer is there.’
‘Can he watch back and front at the same time?’
‘There is but one approach road to the hall, a half-mile avenue to the front of the house. Anyone visiting the property comes that way.’
‘Are you saying that at night, when there is only one of you watching, that it would be impossible to smuggle someone in unseen through a postern door?’
Shoe looked uneasy. He was trying and failing to strike a light with his tinderbox. He shook his head. ‘No, Mr Shakespeare, I am not saying that, for you are right. It would be possible to smuggle a person in unseen by night, if they approached the back of the house by way of the woodland path. Mr Sawyer and I would not see them under such circumstances. But we have not been looking for such a thing. Our charge was to note all visitors, not to besiege the hall.’
‘I understand, Mr Shoe. You have performed your duty well, I am certain, but we have established that the woman could be there. In which case, I come on to my next question: what are my chances of gaining access to the hall? Unseen.’
‘Poor. There are guards. Frenchies.’
‘How many?’
‘Outside, there are six. They work three on, three off. Day and night, like us. But I am sure there are more indoors.’
‘And do they know about you and Sawyer?’
‘Of course. They expect it. Even if they never saw us, they’d know we were there. But they do see us. It’s a game, Mr Shakespeare. Same at the embassy itself, where I have passed many a long hour. They know we dare not intrude on their property, for it would spark a brabble between nations. So their guards are always lax; they know they have nothing to fear. Sometimes, we have even been known to share a drink or two, here at the inn.’
‘So what do you suggest? How do I get in?’
At last Shoe succeeded in firing a spark into the tinder. He blew on the smoking glow and managed to light a taper. Shakespeare looked at him impatiently.
‘Well, Mr Shoe?’
‘I’m contemplating, Mr Shakespeare, contemplating…’ He lit his pipe of tobacco and drew deeply of the pungent smoke. ‘That’s better,’ he said, and promptly resumed his coughing. He smacked himself on his chest, then sat back on the edge of the rank, over-used bed, satisfied that his morning ritual was done. ‘You know what I’d do, sir? I’d walk straight in. Do it in broad daylight. Don’t wait for nightfall, that’s when they would be alert for intruders. In daytime, though, people come and go all the while to a big hall like that — traders bringing wares, gardeners, estate hands, builders.’
‘How do you suggest I do it?’
‘You need to dress yourself as a tradesman, Mr Shakespeare. Ride up, slow as you like, pulling a cart behind you, with produce. Sort of delicate stuff Frenchies like.’
Shakespeare looked at him as if he were mad. ‘You have just told me that they have three guards on duty all the time, Shoe. Why would they not stop me, and then either throw me off the land or call in the sheriff’s men to have me arrested?’
‘Because you will have created a diversion, Mr Shakespeare. Some manner of distraction that will make the sight of a common trader with his cart the last thing on their minds.’
‘A diversion? What diversion?’
‘Ah well, sir, that’s for you to think on, isn’t it. That’s why I earn but a shilling a day and you live in a grand house by the river.’
At Shoe’s side, the whore stirred and turned over. A soft, unwashed aroma wafted Shakespeare’s way from her body, and he suddenly smiled. That was how to do it. The oldest trick there was.
Chapter 43
Shakespeare stood in the woods with Jonas Shoe and watched. It was mid afternoon and the guard had changed. The three pickets who had been there protecting the Old Hall in the morning had gone off to sleep or drink or eat.
The new watch took up their posts. Two were at the main gate, the other one at the front entrance to the house. They were good positions from which to observe and stop any newcomer. The guards had Swiss pikestaffs, as well as swords. Their role was not exactly ceremonial, but nor was it arduous or dangerous. No one really expected an attack on French embassy property. They were there to let the English observers know that they, too, were watched. Also to greet visitors and to deter poachers.
‘The vidame will be taking his afternoon ride soon,’ Shoe said. ‘Always goes out alone after his midday repast. I pity the horses because he rides like he is pursued by a demon. Lashes the beasts to the bone.’
Shakespeare said nothing. He knew the vidame’s liking for speed, but knew, too, that he had a great affection for his horses and would do nothing to cause them harm.
‘Here they come, Mr Shakespeare.’
Three women were trudging through the woods, not fifty yards from them. They were moving in a strange way, as though they were trying to be stealthy, but instead they merely seemed to stumble and giggle. Their dress was awry and they carried flagons.
Shakespeare’s eyes shifted to the two guards at the gate. Their eyes were following the women, too. They grinned at each other, glanced around furtively, then one of them began walking, quickstep, in the direction of the three women. As he neared the woods he gestured with his hand to the guard at the house, who immediately leant his pike against a wall and walked with purpose to join his comrade.
The new sentries had enjoyed a good midday break at the Silver Stag. It was, Shoe told Shakespeare, the place they always went for their daytime meals. They had a weakness for English ale and seemed to have an eye
