so, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a figure a little way down the street, sheltering in the shadow cast by the wall of the house.
The two men moved across Shakespeare’s path to bar his way. He elbowed them aside and pushed on through the front door. They laughed, but did not try too hard to stop him. Inside, the hall was ablaze with the flickering light of pitch torches and candles. Richard Topcliffe was sitting in the centre of the room on a coffer of polished elm, one leg swinging, his pipe stuck in his mouth, belching out smoke.
To one side of the room, Shakespeare saw the family who lived here. Father, mother and six children aged from about five to fifteen. They were all in their nightclothes and stood rigidly to attention, frightened witless.
‘Well, well, Mr Shakespeare. What a pleasure to see you here,’ Topcliffe growled like an undomesticated cat. He had a sheaf of papers in his hand. ‘Come to help me flush out vermin, have you?’
On the other side of the room stood a line of serving men and women, half a dozen in all. Two were in livery, the others in nightclothes like their master’s family.
‘What are you talking about, Topcliffe?’
‘This is Mr Sluyterman, according to the Return of Strangers here.’ Topcliffe ran his finger down a list of names. ‘Mr Jan Sluyterman. Says he has a wife, Gertrude, which I take to be that ugly oyster-wench at his side, and six children — Cornelius, another Jan, Pieter, Willem, Marthe and Jacob. Says, too, that he has six servants, three of them English and three Dutch.’ Topcliffe turned to the master of the house. ‘Is that all correct, Mr Sluyterman?’
Topcliffe had two heavily armed pursuivants at his side. These agents of the state, with powers of search and arrest, brandished swords and wheel-lock pistols. From other rooms came the sound of stamping boots and smashing panels. Obviously, there was a cohort of other men spread around the house, searching for someone — or something.
‘ Ja — yes, sir. It is correct. But-’
‘Shut your filthy Dutch mouth, Mr Sluyterman. I will tell you when I wish you to speak.’
‘But I thought you asked-’
‘I don’t like your Dutch voice, I don’t like your Dutch whore of a wife and I don’t like you, Sluyterman, so stow you before I force my blackthorn down your miserable gullet. Are you Calvinists? Her Majesty the Queen does not like Calvinists and nor do I.’
Shakespeare could tell from Sluyterman’s eyes that he was concealing something. The Dutchman looked at Topcliffe with a steady, nervous gaze as if afraid that averting his eyes would confirm his guilt. He was a well-fed man in his forties. He looked as though he had never done anything more physical than lift a quill, write in a ledger and count coin. His wife was attractive in a homely, plump way, with a white lawn coif about her hair. Her children, all standing like statues with their arms at their sides, wore white linen nightcaps and long linen gowns.
‘You question the servants, Shakespeare. You see if they’re English or Dutch.’
‘Do your own dirty work, Topcliffe. These are human beings, not vermin.’
‘As you wish.’ Topcliffe jumped from the coffer with a nimbleness that belied his sixty years. Clenching his pipe in his teeth, he approached the line of servants, swinging his silver-tipped blackthorn. One by one, he prodded them in the belly and demanded, ‘Name, position, place of birth?’ One by one, in quivering voices, they told him their names, outlined their duties and told him where they came from. It seemed they all knew Topcliffe by repute, for they looked at him as a rabbit might view a fox that had it cornered. All but one, Shakespeare noted. One of the English servants, a man of about thirty in nightclothes, seemed not so afraid. He and two others spoke clear English devoid of any foreign accent. The other three spoke enough English, but were obviously from the Low Countries.
‘I will tell you what I like best, Shakespeare. I like to see the fear in their eyes, close up. When a man dare not look away from my eyes, though he cannot abide what he sees there, for it is his own pain and death reflected.’
‘And what do you see in the looking-glass?’
Topcliffe hesitated, as if pondering the question. Against one wall of the room was a tall glass, darkly mottled by age. He walked to it and smashed it with the heavy, cudgel head of his blackthorn. The glass splintered into countless shards. ‘Now then,’ he said, standing back from the glass and addressing the whole hall. ‘That all seems in order. Except that I have counted one servant missing.’ His humour darkened considerably and he hammered his blackthorn against the floor. ‘We have information that there is a Dutch serving girl here who was hidden from the Return. You know the law, Mr Sluyterman — for every stranger employed, you must employ one English servant. I tell you this, if you fail to tell me where she is hiding, you will all be considered accessories to treason, secretly harbouring an agent of a foreign power — and you will suffer the might of the law. Your children will be taken to Bridewell and broken like horses on the treadmill. You and your wife will be detained until such time as you are flung out of the country or worse. Do you have enough English to understand what that all means?’
Shakespeare had had enough. He strode forward. ‘Call off your pack, Topcliffe. You have clearly been misinformed. Let these people go back to bed. You will find no one here. Any more of this, and I will hand a full report on your egregious deeds to my lord Burghley.’
Topcliffe spat on the floor. ‘Burghley! Do you think I fear that gout-ridden shipwreck? There is a Dutch serving girl here, Shakespeare, brought in from Flushing not six weeks since. I know it. There is more — I know this Sluyterman to have a secret chamber for the making of fine leather stuffs, where none but prentices work. He cares not a sheep’s cut bollock that English journeymen do starve. He is a usurer and a deceit and I will have him in Bridewell.’
Shakespeare was standing directly in front of a pursuivant. In one swift movement, he stepped backwards hard on to his foot, turning and thrusting his left elbow high into the man’s face. As the pursuivant grunted and fell back, Shakespeare wrenched the pistol from his grasp and put it to Topcliffe’s head.
‘I do not know about this family’s understanding of the English language, Topcliffe, but it is you that does not seem to comprehend your mother tongue well. I said you have done enough here. Even if what you claim about the maid is true, it is a matter so trivial that Her Majesty would be enraged to hear of your actions. Does she not employ many strangers herself — including her personal physician? As for the leather work, it is a matter for the Worshipful Company of Cordwainers, not you. Now go, Mr Topcliffe and take your vile dogs with you, before I do England a favour and blow off your head.’
Topcliffe laughed out loud.
Shakespeare moved closer to him, so that his mouth was at his temple. All the anger of the day was ready to explode in one little press of his trigger finger. ‘Do you think I don’t know what this is about?’ he whispered harshly in the torturer’s wizened ear. ‘Now walk, or I will happily do for you, and trust in the rightness of my action and the protection of Sir Robert Cecil.’
Topcliffe laughed again. Five pursuivants had arrived in the hall from various parts of the house. Shakespeare was surrounded.
Sluyterman stepped forward. He had removed his nightcap and was clutching it in front of him. His head was bowed. He was shaking. He went down on his knees in supplication to both Topcliffe and Shakespeare. ‘Please, I beg of you, do not let there be bloodshed…’
‘Oh, there will be blood shed, Mr Sluyterman,’ Topcliffe snarled. ‘You can be certain of that. There will be Dutch blood aplenty.’
Shakespeare thrust his hand into Topcliffe’s thick white hair and pushed him down. He was stronger than Shakespeare expected and did not fall to his knees, but took a faltering step forward, then turned with a vicious wrench of his shoulders and pulled himself clear. But the primed gun was still trained on him, pointing full in his face.
‘Get up, sir,’ Shakespeare said to the Dutchman. ‘This is nothing to do with you. It is about me. I am afraid you and your family were simply in the wrong place, living so close to me.’
An explosion rent the air. Topcliffe’s men shied backwards like startled horses. One or two dropped flat to the floor and scrabbled for safety. Someone screamed.
As the smoke cleared, all eyes turned to the front doorway. Boltfoot Cooper stood there, a smoking wheel- lock pistol hanging from his hand. He dropped it to the floor, kicked it away and, with practised ease, unslung his ornate caliver from his back and cradled it in his arms, the octagonal muzzle pointing this way and that. He had another loaded wheel-lock thrust into his belt and his cutlass hung menacingly at his thigh.
‘Very good to see you, Boltfoot,’ Shakespeare said. ‘Very good, indeed.’
