Prince

Chapter 27

It was wrong to have the warm hand of a living woman touch him. Shakespeare looked at his hand as though it were on fire.

Ana looked at him with questioning in her eye, then looked away, back at the track.

The horses had started at a strong pace. There were six in the race. They had two miles to go, two laps of a prepared circuit. The vidame, dazzling in purple silks, was easily distinguishable from this distance. The Barb’s black coat shone as she settled in the middle of the small pack. The rider of the hobby, Great Henry, was the Queen’s finest jockey from her stables at Eltham. He was small and light, yet exceedingly strong, with such power in his forearms that in a driving finish few ever bettered him. He took Great Henry straight to the front and galloped on by a couple of lengths; it was the only way the horse knew to run; go to the front and stay there. At six years of age, he had never been beaten, and had won the Golden Spur twice before. Most of the crowd’s money was on him. They knew him and loved him and he had been trained with this, the premier race of the year, in mind. He had already beaten the other four English horses, which meant the Barb should be the only threat to his dominance. How could an unknown three-year-old filly from France, even one so well bred and conformed as Conquistadora, have Great Henry’s measure?

The horses were into the home straight. Great Henry was a length to the good, galloping with power and resolve, hugging the inside track. The vidame, purple silks billowing, had not moved a muscle nor raised his whip on Conquistadora. The other four horses were trailing in their wake. Now, they came within a furlong of the finishing post. Great Henry was thundering home like a champion. But then, with a sudden kick of the vidame’s spurs in the barrel of the black Barb, Conquistadora surged forward and was past the Queen’s hobby in three strides. The crowd’s roar died and a gasp went up in its place. The vidame’s young filly had beaten the Queen’s champion.

Shakespeare did not see it. Had he looked, he would have seen Essex bowing deeply to his sovereign and kissing her hand with fervour while she affected to sulk. But Shakespeare had already turned to walk away, nodding coldly to Ana as he went. This was all vanity. No concern of his. There was no more for him here. He strode off, down towards the river.

The day was bright, but he was lost in a fog. He thought of all he had to do. Get Antonio Perez or Ana Cabral or both of them to Cecil. Find the prince of Scots, if he was there to be found. Find the powderman. Somewhere there was a clockmaker who had colluded in terror and murder. Find the clockmaker.

The water-stairs were crowded with tilt-boat oarsmen touting for business. They had brought hundreds of Londoners here to Greenwich and were waiting for fares back again at the end of the races. Shakespeare stepped into the first boat in line and settled back beneath the awning, unaware that the man who had followed him all the way here was about to step into the boat immediately behind his.

The magnificent southern facade of Essex House, with its high square turret and tall windows, dominated the Thames just before the river curved in a graceful arc upstream towards Westminster. Shakespeare paid the watermen and stepped ashore on the Earl of Essex’s private landing stage. He glanced up at the turret. Inside the room at the top lay the hub of the earl’s own intelligence network.

Shakespeare was immediately confronted by two halberdiers barring his way with long axe-pick staffs.

‘I am John Shakespeare, an officer of Sir Robert Cecil. I am here to see Don Antonio Perez.’

Beyond the pleasant riverbank stood an eight-foot high wall. The water-stairs led directly to a narrow, arched gateway that gave on to the earl’s beautifully tended gardens. The gateway was the only way in.

‘I do believe you are not to be allowed admittance, master,’ one of the guards said. ‘I will look at the list of proscribed names, but it is my recollection that you are at the top.’

‘This is nothing to do with my lord of Essex. This is a Privy Council matter involving Sir Robert Cecil and Don Antonio and there must be no delay. If you do not let me pass, you may expect the full force of Her Majesty’s law to descend upon you.’

The guards looked at one another doubtfully. The one who had spoken before lowered his halberd. ‘Wait here, Mr Shakespeare. I shall seek advice.’ A minute later he returned with Edward Wilton, the chief of guards from Gaynes Park Hall. Wilton eyed Shakespeare with distaste.

‘Keep turning up where you are not wanted, don’t you, Mr Shakespeare.’

‘This is Council business, Wilton. I must confer with Don Antonio. Bring him to me here if you will not admit me to the house.’

‘You can write him a letter. I will deliver it for you personally. An ardent letter writer, the Spaniard. I am sure he will like to have one from you.’

‘Bring me quill, ink and paper.’

‘Come with me…’

Wilton walked Shakespeare through the gardens towards the guard room, which was at the side of the house. A dozen or so guards were lounging around, playing cards. They rose to attention at the sight of Wilton, but paid Shakespeare no heed.

‘Here you are, Mr Shakespeare,’ Wilton said pushing a paper and quill to him across a table. ‘Write away.’

Shakespeare wrote a simple note: Sir Robert Cecil would see you with utmost urgency at Greenwich Palace this evening at six of the clock. It will be to your great advantage to be there. He considered adding that a failure to attend would be viewed with utmost disfavour, but decided against it. He folded the paper and handed it to Wilton.

‘I will await a reply.’

‘Not in here you won’t.’

‘I will be by the river. Do not fail me, Mr Wilton. You are not above the law of the land.’

As he strode back through the garden with Wilton two steps behind him, clutching the letter, Shakespeare caught sight of a familiar figure, the Earl of Essex’s beautiful sister Penelope Rich. She saw him at the same time and walked towards him. She had a posy of new-cut flowers in one hand and a small pair of garden scissors in the other.

‘Good day, Mr Shakespeare.’

He bowed. ‘Lady Rich.’

‘I heard-’

He met her black eyes. ‘Please, my lady.’

‘Indeed. I am sorry. Truly sorry, whatever our differences.’

He said nothing.

‘Yet I am surprised to find you here. I had not thought that you would dare come to Essex House again.’

‘I must speak with Don Antonio.’

‘Ah, yes, of course. I understand. My charming little Spaniard is much in demand suddenly.’

‘Would you bring him to me?’

‘I am not certain my brother would like that, Mr Shakespeare. He does not have a good opinion of you.’

‘I have come here openly, on a matter of great import to the realm.’

She looked at him a moment. He recalled a time when he had looked into those dark eyes and wondered whether she might lead him to betray Catherine. He felt none of the stirring now that he had felt then.

She was dressed in a summer gown of light worsted, with an exquisite mulberry bodice and sleeves of yellow gold — a colour which perfectly complemented her abundant fair curls. Even cutting flowers, at home in the garden, she looked a match for any woman in the land. At last she nodded to him and smiled. ‘I will speak with him. Wait here. Mr Wilton, have a footman bring refreshment to Mr Shakespeare.’

Wilton was clearly put out. As Penelope departed indoors, he handed the letter back to Shakespeare. ‘Won’t be needing this. What refreshment would you like? Spirit of monkshood? Henbane beer?’

‘I would not wish to deprive you, Mr Wilton. Common ale will suffice.’

Shakespeare sat in the sun on a garden bench. Within a few minutes, Penelope Rich reappeared. ‘He will be with you presently, Mr Shakespeare. I think it best that you meet here in the garden.’

‘As you wish, my lady.’

She smiled. ‘Though the circumstances are full of sorrow, it has been a pleasure to meet you again.’ She extended her hand.

Shakespeare took her elegant fingers and bowed to kiss them, then watched as she disappeared into the house. He sat and drank the ale that had been brought to him. It was half an hour before Perez finally appeared at the doorway. He stood for a moment on the steps leading down to the garden, blinking like a creature that has been deprived of light suddenly emerging from its hole. He looked small and much reduced. In his tremulous hands, he clutched his gold box, close to his chest. Once again, Shakespeare found it difficult to think that this feeble, insignificant thing had been the most powerful man in the world. He rose from the bench and walked towards the Spaniard.

‘Don Antonio, thank you for coming to me,’ he said slipping more easily into the Spanish tongue than he had at Gaynes Park.

‘Did Pregent’s little Barb filly win her race?’

‘I fear I do not know,’ he said truthfully.

‘No matter. I shall discover soon enough. So, am I correct in thinking Sir Robert has the gold ready for me?’

‘Indeed. I am sure Dona Ana has explained the details to you. But Sir Robert is eager to meet you in person. He will recommend to the Queen that you be received by her in the presence-chamber, without delay.’

‘That is good. Good. But to think I am come to this, begging for a few ducats of gold when once I controlled the treasure fleets from Peru.’

‘I believe it is more than a few ducats, Don Antonio.’

‘But I need riches, Mr Shakespeare. I am not a well man. I ail.’

Shakespeare could not pretend to be either concerned or amused. ‘Can I take you now, perhaps, to Greenwich Palace?’ His voice was brittle. ‘Sir Robert will be there this evening. It is but a short journey by tiltboat.’

‘I am not well enough for such a voyage. Can Sir Robert not come to me?’

‘No you must go to him. He has promised you the gold. He will keep his word.’

Perez hesitated. At last he sighed. ‘You are a man of honour, Mr Shakespeare. If Sir Robert has agreed to pay me the gold, then I must believe he will pay. I shall reveal my secret to you now, and you will bring me my reward. Come.’ He lowered himself on to a bench at the top of the steps and patted the space beside him with his soft white hand. ‘Let us sit here in the glorious sun and I shall tell you a tale of such intrigue that your astounded heart will beat like the sails of a windmill.’

Shakespeare frowned. Perez must surely know that he was already in possession of the secret. All he needed was the whereabouts of the prince. Shakespeare said nothing. Let Perez tell it in his own way, in his own language. The vital thing was that he should offer up the one missing detail.

‘As I have intimated,’ Perez continued, ‘this tale goes back more than twenty years. The events of long ago haunt us still…’

Perez shot Shakespeare a warm smile. ‘Have you heard of Montigny? What I am about to tell you is a state secret of Spain, Mr Shakespeare. A secret so close guarded that none but four outside this garden have ever heard of it — and two of them are now dead. King Philip would hide away with shame were he to hear that I have told you.’

The day was ticking on. Yet Shakespeare was at this man’s mercy. Perez would tell this as he wished, at his own speed.

‘I ask again, do you know of Montigny?’

Montigny? The name registered in some distant recess of his memory, but meant little.

‘From the days of Alba’s tribunal, Mr Shakespeare — the Council of Blood, as it was known in Protestant circles. Montigny was one of the Flemish nobles sentenced to death.’

Ah yes, that was it. Shakespeare’s brow creased deeper. ‘That is ancient history, Don Antonio. What bearing can such an event have on your great secret?’

‘Drink your ale and listen, Mr Shakespeare, and then you will understand. If you convey this to the Basilisk, she will clap her wrinkled, mottled hands and order you to bring me to her. Of that I am sure. But before I go to her, you must be certain to instruct me in her tastes and desires, for I know she will have heard of the wonders I can offer a woman and will wish to sample them.’

Shakespeare was trying to conjure up all he knew of Montigny. Everything had changed since those long-gone days. Back in the late sixties, in a futile attempt to put down the rebellion in the Spanish Netherlands, Philip’s then governor, the Duke of Alba, had set up a notorious court that had become known as the Council of Blood. It had sentenced hundreds, perhaps thousands, of rebels to death. The most infamous executions had been those of the counts Egmont and Hoorn in 1568. Montigny — or, to give him his full title, Floris van Montmorency, Baron of Montigny — was Hoorn’s younger brother. In 1567, he had been sent as an envoy to Spain to plead for reform in the Netherlands and to beg that the Inquisition be kept away. Instead of a royal hearing, he got a cell in a castle dungeon where he later died, largely forgotten, of an ague. So what had any of this to do with Mary, Queen of Scots and a baby born at Lochleven castle?

‘I believe you are sceptical, Mr Shakespeare, but hear me out. This is Philip’s great stain, the sin that will consign him to perdition.’

‘As you will.’

‘In 1570, Montigny is still alive, held in the castle of Simancas to the north of Madrid, about a hundred miles from Philip’s great monastic palace, the Escorial. This is the year that King Philip takes the last of his four brides, Anne of Austria, his niece.

‘By this time, King Philip has determined that Montigny must be executed. But then fate intervenes. While Anne of Austria is en route to Spain to become Philip’s queen, she stops at Antwerp and there meets Montigny’s mother, the dowager Countess of Hoorn. The countess has already lost her elder son to the Council of Blood and now she goes down on her knees as a supplicant, begging Anne to intercede on behalf of her imprisoned younger son. Anne is touched by the plea and promises that her first act on arrival at Philip’s court in Spain will be to solicit mercy for Montigny. She is certain that such a request will not be denied to his new queen for she knows she is a beautiful woman and has the wiles to gain whatever favour she wishes from a man.’

Shakespeare was about to interrupt, but Perez held up his soft, mottled hand.

‘Be patient, Mr Shakespeare. All will become clear. Now, before Anne departs on the long last leg of her journey, the Duke of Alba hears of her vow to the Countess of Hoorn and is alarmed. He knows the King’s will, which accords with his own; all such rebels must die, especially the Flemish noblemen such as Montigny, whom they see as ringleaders. Without delay, Alba sends a messenger ahead to the Escorial to warn Philip of the plea that his young bride intends to make.

‘Philip is horrified. He feels compromised. If he orders the execution now, it will be clear to Anne what has happened. That would not be a good start to a marriage. And so he determines that Montigny must die by other means. It must be quiet and secret and be made to look like some illness.’

‘So Philip determines to murder Montigny. I still do not understand…’

Perez was not to be stopped. ‘A letter signed by Philip is sent to the governor of Simancas castle, ordering the killing and giving details of how it is to be concealed. I have seen this letter. It specifies that word is to be put out that the prisoner is seriously ill. Every day for a week a physician is to be admitted to the castle with remedies for Montigny’s supposed ailments. The governor of the castle follows his instructions faithfully. The physician is brought in very publicly day by day so that his presence is noted. Then comes the day of death. Imagine, if you will, the dark-shadowed stone walls of this remote castle. At midnight the brutish executioner arrives with his garotte concealed beneath his black cape. He is welcomed with wine by the governor. They speak in whispers. No one must know what is happening.

‘Some time between two and three of the clock, when the castle sleeps, the governor and his squat, strong-armed guest walk silently through the dungeons to the cell where Montigny slumbers. He wakes in a panic to find the governor and a masked man staring down at him. The governor tells him that the King has granted him a special dispensation. He will not, after all, be executed publicly in the manner of commoners, but will die quietly here in his cell in a style befitting his noble status. He is telling Montigny that he is to be murdered, here and now, and that he should be thankful for the favour! But first he must write a last letter to his wife, as if composed on his sickbed, to prove that he has died naturally. It will bring her comfort, he is told, to believe that he has not suffered a violent death. He is left with no option; with a heavy heart he writes his last will and testament and sends his love and blessings to his family, revealing nothing about the true nature of his impending doom. There is no priest to administer the last rites but he is told he may pray. He falls to his knees and is about to commend his soul to God when the assassin strikes from behind, looping the garotte about his neck and twisting the rope and rod with his blacksmith’s muscles, choking the life from his victim in silence.

‘The executioner slips away into the night and the governor sends a letter to Philip to tell of the sad death of the prisoner from fever. The people of Simancas and the officers of the castle believe this, for they saw the physician day by day. They do not see the body, nor the purplish weal on the neck, for Montigny is already in his winding sheet, ready for interment. The king affects sorrow, and the world thinks no more of Floris van Montmorency, Baron of Montigny. If Anne of Austria and Montigny’s mother have suspicions, what can they say? What can they prove?’

At last, Perez paused for effect. He looked at Shakespeare and shrugged his shoulders lightly as if all should now be clear to him. ‘And there you have it. That is the kind of man we have as king of half the world. That is Philip the Second of Spain. A man who would kill without honour and hide behind the skirts of women. What do you say to that, Mr Shakespeare? Will this tale not bring me to court? Is it not worth Cecil’s gold?’

Shakespeare struggled for something to say. Yes, this was of great interest, but nothing more. The Queen would listen to it avidly and clap her hands with glee and horror. Yes, it would cause a sensation at court. It could be used against Philip. It would stiffen the resolve of Protestants and cause consternation among Catholics. In its way, it had value. But in the greater scheme of international politicking, it was a trifle. And at home, it was of no significance to the safety of the realm and no relevance to the succession. Compared to the story told by the old nun, it was as nothing.

‘It is a hideous story, Don Antonio. But what has this to do with Mary, Queen of Scots and the secret of her son by Bothwell?’

Perez, exhausted by the telling of his story, had opened the lid to his box and was sifting through the glass vials. At last he plucked one out, removed its little cork stopper and tipped the contents down his throat. He closed his eyes and reclined on the bench, the hazy sun full on his pallid, mottled face.

‘Don Antonio?’

‘I do not know what you are saying, Mr Shakespeare. There, you have the great secret. My life is worth nothing now. Philip has tried to kill me these many years for fear that I would disclose it. Now, he will divert every assassin in his armoury towards me.’

‘Don Antonio, we were led to believe you had information of the son born to Mary of Scots in the castle of Lochleven.’

Perez breathed deeply, luxuriating in the warmth of the opium spirit as it spread through his body. ‘You are talking in riddles, Mr Shakespeare… What we need is a coalition against this murderous Philip and his empire of death. We must bring in the Dutch, the French, the Portingales and the Mussalmans of Turkey…’

‘You sent a message to Sir Robert Cecil that you had a secret to sell, one pertaining to the royal succession. The tale of Montigny has no bearing on the English Crown. How could it?’

‘I said I had a great secret to sell. I said nothing of succession.’

Shakespeare looked at him hard. A cloud passed across the face of the sun. No. Of course he had said no such thing, for it was not Perez who had given the message to Cecil that there was a secret for sale. That task would have been given to his secretary, who would most certainly have listened to Ana Cabral. Perez was nothing to do with any of this. He was a bystander, a convenience. This was all about Ana Cabral and the old nun. Perez could propose his grand schemes for the overthrow of Philip, yet all the while his mistress was busy with the real plot. Perez had been no more than a ticket of passage to England. Without knowing it, every action he took was abetting the very regime he wished to destroy. Shakespeare stood up. He could not wait here a moment longer.

‘I remember such a tale, Mr Shakespeare,’ Perez said languidly, eyes now closed. ‘In the late sixties, it was whispered in court circles that a child had been brought from Scotland to Spain, but I paid such tittle-tattle no heed…’

Shakespeare was not listening. He had already bowed curtly to Don Antonio and was now running through the garden towards the water-stairs. He needed to bring in the Cabral woman without delay.