Prince

Chapter 28

The oarsman brought the tilt-boat smoothly alongside the little pier beside Essex’s private water-stairs. ‘Greenwich,’ Shakespeare said brusquely. The boat rocked and the water lapped at its bows as he settled into the seat at the back. ‘Why are there not two of you? I’m in a hurry.’

‘My copesmate ails, master. The bloody flux. But the tide is with us…’

‘Put muscle into it and you shall have an extra groat.’

Boltfoot felt that death must come soon and that it would be a kindness. He could scarce struggle for breath now. The pain in his back and neck and bound arms had turned into an agonising numbness, where feeling seemed to be slipping into everlasting non-feeling.

What little fetid air he could snatch through the metal pipe went to his lungs in short rasps. He could not have screamed even if he wished to. Was he conscious any more? He was not certain. He no longer wondered what was happening. His only thought was Jane and little John, his baby son. They were what kept him alive, they were his only reason to survive.

Occasionally, he opened his eyes. A tiny spot of light came through the tube, but all it offered was a charcoal dimness instead of utter black. He had no way of knowing how many hours he had been here, but thought it must still be daylight outside.

There was a noise above him. A scraping sound. He gasped at the stale air. The tube was pulled out from above and a spray of dry earth fell through the hole into the coffin. It dusted down across his face, spreading into his eyes, up his nostrils and into his mouth. He tried to spit it out, but more came in, so he closed his lips. Now he could not breathe at all. The gritty earth was at the back of his throat. He began to retch uncontrollably and his chest heaved.

From above, the scraping continued. He vaguely realised that someone was clearing the earth from the coffin. It seemed they were digging him up, but his life hung like the last ember buried in the ashes of a fire that has been left untended overnight.

Suddenly the lid of the coffin was levered off. Boltfoot spat and coughed out as much soil as he could. He tried to open his eyes, but they were thick with dust and the brilliance of the light was unbearable. He felt his body being lifted by a number of hands.

‘He has risen from the dead.’

The voice was Scottish, high-pitched and coarse.

‘Why, I do declare it a miracle.’

Without ceremony, he was flung to the ground. He blinked open his eyes. He could see now that he was close to a fragrant fire of sticks and branches. With an effort, he turned to one side and saw the three black-robed men. They were standing in a semicircle, looking down at him with curiosity, as if wondering what to do next with their prize.

Then he noticed something else about them, something he had not been able to discern before his entombment. Only one of these three Scots was a man. The other two were young, fair-haired women with brutish faces. From the similarity of their faces and masculine build, he took them to be sisters and thought them barely out of their teen years.

‘Do we have a little potion to revive him, sister Agnes?’

‘I think we do, sister Gellie.’

‘Look at him. Do you not think him wide-eyed beneath the soot and soil? Maybe he is surprised to be alive…’

‘And to be welcomed by two such lovely sisters and their fine brother, with the cooper’s image all prepared in wax with his hair.’

‘Give him the remedy, sister Agnes. Is it mixed well? Give it to him and let him wonder at our craft as we cut him and pass him over the fire nine times. Let us call on Dog to help us in this and we shall kiss his red buttocks and stroke his red tail. Then we shall see how this cooper do sweat and whether he waste away and melt as his wax image do…’

The waterman struck just beyond the bridge. They were in mid-stream. The river was crowded with many different boats and sailing vessels. A barge pulled by a boat with a dozen strong oarsmen had just passed, creating a heavy swell in its wake. The tilt-boat rocked madly. The waterman stumbled back beneath the canopy, as if trying to regain his balance.

Shakespeare held out his arms to steady him, but found himself instead being dragged forward and, in one deft movement, flung over the side into the grey, swelling depths of the river.

He sank into the dark water, frantically kicking and pulling with his arms to find the surface. But he was disoriented, dragged by the tide and his encumbrances — sword, pistols, boots, clothes. He could not discern whether he was going down or up. Suddenly, he broke surface and gulped in air. The first thing he saw was the blade of the oar descending towards his head. He tried to duck back beneath the surface, but he was not fast enough. The hard, heavy wood hit the crown of his head like a hammer.

The blow knocked him sideways through the water. He floundered, flailing with his arms, but did not lose consciousness. The oar was coming at him again. This time he dived down before it hit. He tried to swim away from the boat, fighting against the current. The water was murky, and he could not see. At last, he came up again. He was no more than four yards from the boat. The oarsman had a pistol. He was pressing a single, heavy ball, wrapped in cartridge paper, into its muzzle. Shakespeare dived again, but this time he headed back towards the boat. Its shape loomed above him, narrow and dark against the surface light.

Shakespeare and the tilt-boat were both being dragged downstream through the teeming shipping lane, past the Tower. With an immense push of both arms, Shakespeare thrust upwards on one side of the boat, trying to upturn it. It swayed slightly, but it was far too heavy to capsize.

The waterman looked down at him. He had the pistol loaded and primed. Their eyes were barely three feet apart. Shock registered as Shakespeare saw the face of the man trying to kill him. It was a face he had not registered when he hired this boat, for whoever looked at a waterman’s face? The face broke into a grin as he pulled the trigger.

The blast of powder rent the air and the ball spat harmlessly into the water. The waterman peered into the smoke. He must have hit Shakespeare, but he could see nothing through the powder-fug. Then he looked back. Shakespeare had somehow contrived to emerge twenty yards behind him and was rapidly receding.

Shakespeare clung to the chain of the buoy and gazed at the tilt-boat disappearing downstream. One moment he had been about to die, the next the buoy had hit him and he had thrown his arms about it and held on.

He was not far from the southern bank of the Thames, just east of Horsey Down. But in this ebb tide, he had no chance of swimming ashore. If he let go of this buoy he would be swept downriver until death took him.

A small wherry was approaching. Shakespeare waved at it. With great skill, the two oarsmen came alongside and threw a mooring rope around the wooden buoy.

‘We saw that,’ one of the young oarsmen said as they hauled Shakespeare aboard. ‘You’re lucky to be alive; he was trying to do for you.’

Shakespeare nodded. He knew he had been most fortunate. But why, he wondered, as he slumped, drenched, into the oarsman’s arms, had Richard Baines been trying to kill him?

The three black-clad Scots had a long, three-inch thick branch of ash. It was strong young wood. They thrust it between Boltfoot’s bindings — arms and legs — so he was like a whole pig ready to be spit-roasted over the fire.

On one side of the fire, which was low in flame but scorching in intensity, they had driven a stake into the ground. At the top there was a deep notch. They lifted Boltfoot and put one end of the ash branch into the notch. The man and one of the women gripped the other end, close to Boltfoot’s head and began to chant as the other woman danced around the fire playing a Jew’s harp.

Boltfoot was breathing more easily now. He felt like laughing out loud at these preposterous people, but he was not at all sure that was wise given his precarious position at their mercy.

Suddenly the woman with the Jew’s harp shuddered, fell to her knees and threw up her gown to display her naked arse, like an animal in rut. It was like a cue at the playhouse for the other two to chant louder and begin to bring Boltfoot around across the fire. They held him there, slung low so that his back was no more than a few inches above the red, fiery heat. Involuntarily he tried to arch his back away from the unbearable burning pain, but to no avail. He was held there for ten seconds that felt like ten minutes, his teeth clenched against the scream that his throat and very being longed to utter.

They moved him on, to the other side of the fire. The fire had caused agony such as he had never felt before. And he knew that it would come again. Nine times across the fire, they had said. Nine times. He exhaled a long, straggling breath. In front of him the woman with the Jew’s harp was on all fours on the ground, her gown clutched up around her waist so that her pink nakedness was exposed. It seemed to him that her grunting and panting was the hunger of a bitch in heat. She was offering herself up, to some unseen presence. Begging to be taken by the devil himself.

Shakespeare was still soaked through when the wherrymen landed him at Greenwich. He wondered, vaguely, whether the involuntary drinking of the putrid Thames water might do for him. For the present, however, he had more pressing concerns.

The races were all done with. If Baines was here, there was no sign of him. As for the Queen and her courtiers, they had long since departed back to the confines of the palace. Only the common folk were still in the park, eating, drinking and enjoying the entertainments in the late afternoon sunshine.

Shakespeare found the Vidame de Chartres near the palace stables. The French nobleman was ensuring that Conquistadora was well looked after for her journey back to the stables at Wanstead, where she was now to be housed. The vidame held up the golden spur he had won for his victory. ‘Given me by your Queen’s own fair hand. I told you the horse was no nag, sir.’

‘I am looking for Dona Ana.’

‘I have not seen her since the race, Monsieur Shakespeare. But I imagine she will be at Essex House this evening. There is to be feasting in honour of a famous victory. Come — and bring my woman with you.’

‘You have heard all I will say on that matter.’

‘Her Majesty the Queen has other ideas. She agrees Monique is my property and has granted me her return.’

‘I believe the courts will not accede to your demands. Certainly, I will not. Slavery is repugnant to God and humanity.’

‘Have you told that to Mr Hawkins, your great slaver?’

Shakespeare said no more. He went to the servants’ quarters at the palace, where he stripped naked so that his clothes could be hung up to dry in front of an open fire. As he waited, he sent a messenger to request a meeting with Sir Robert Cecil.