Prince

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 had smiled to himself. This was going to be easier than he had expected. He would not have to make the long journey to Edinburgh after all. He carved a slice of breast flesh with his dagger. It was a good knife, crafted from hard steel and bone. He had killed with it before and it would serve its purpose again.

In the back room of The Pelican, sometimes known as the Devil’s Tavern, close by Wapping, to the east of the Tower, Holy Trinity Curl rattled a pair of wheel-lock pistols in the air. ‘Will you die like dogs or fight like men?’ he bellowed.

‘We’ll fight!’ the powerfully armed men roared back. There were thirty-eight of them in the room, too few to fill it. There should have been seventy or more, fifty at the very least. Warboys had even suggested there could be more than a hundred.

‘Where are the others?’ Curl had whispered to his lieutenant, Oliver Kettle, a few minutes earlier.

‘Slipped away, scared, the mangy-arsed maggots.’

‘And Warboys? Why is he not here? He’s not scared. Never, not Warboys.’

‘Tom says Warboys is sick with the flux. But I reckon he’s cup-shot in a gutter somewhere. He’s always been one for the strong ale and aqua coelestis when things got rough. Maybe he’ll turn up.’

‘Well, the devil’s puke on them all. We’ll stand and fight, Mr Kettle.’

‘Aye, that we will.’

‘The poor will join us for they have nothing to lose, the prentices will fight with us for they hate the strangers, and the merchants will do nothing to stop us for they want their trade back. Our only foes are the Cecils and their council of traitors. Who could fear Little Crookback or Old Whitebeard? Wait until the Sieve blows, then we will strike. Then the people will join our apostle band and tear down the walls of the palaces. It will be as if Bedlam had opened wide its doors. Do the men all know their separate duties?’

‘They do. Eight to the Dutch church with me, with honed blades and sharp axes; twenty on the street with you to march on the bridge and gather men as you go; those remaining — the ones who should have been under Mr Warboys’s command — will cross the river with Mr Foal instead, there to meet Mr Sarjent, Mr Quincesmith and the Scots contingent when they disembark. Together, they will march on Greenwich. All will stand firm. There is not a craven spirit in this room.’

Curl had his doubts. He surveyed the men ranged before him; they were hard enough now, but how would they be when the firing began? He banged the butts of his wheel-locks on the table, repeatedly, like a drumroll. The men roared back their approval, and Curl’s misgivings began to evaporate into the smoke-filled room.

‘Will you cut their Dutch throats, in their temple praying?’ he bellowed.

‘Aye,’ the men called back, ‘we will cut their throats.’

Curl’s mouth tightened, his lips turned down; he banged the butts of his pistols down on the table once more. ‘Then stand with me, brothers-in-arms. Our swords shall play the orators for us. Be bold, be resolute — and this day you shall see a victory for England as great as Agincourt or Crecy!’

The Swiftsure, a royal ship of three hundred tons with thirty-four guns, cruised upstream with elegant majesty. As a fighting ship against the Armada, she had carried a complement of one hundred and eighty men, but James Adam had been able to muster no more than thirty, which was enough to get the ship under way and man the cannon.

They had departed from Gravesend with great speed. She was well scrubbed, having recently been refitted and armed in preparation for a tour of duty patrolling the narrow sea.

‘Well, Mr Cooper,’ Adam said as they rode the churning flood past Dartford, ‘it seems we are shipmates once more. I had heard you were now a scurvy freshwater mariner.’

Boltfoot ignored his old master’s insult. They had been together before Drake’s circumnavigation. Adam had always been fair enough, but he had been hard, too.

‘Catch her, Mr Adam,’ Shakespeare said. ‘That is all I demand of you — catch this wretched vessel.’

‘If the Swiftsure cannot, nothing can. I reckon her the fleetest galleon in the Navy Royal, sir. With the wind and tide behind us, we’ll make ten knots. Your floundering bark will not make half that speed.’

‘How do we do this? Can we board the Sieve? Gulden insists he is able to disarm the clock.’

‘I trust you are making jest with me, Mr Shakespeare.’ Adam glanced at the Dutchman who stood with them on the poop, his brow creased in fear. ‘If it was my decision, I would string the man up from the yard-arm here and now.’ He turned back to Shakespeare. ‘There is but one thing to do — blow her out of the water, and all in her.’

Shakespeare had feared this was what he would say. It was not an option that brought him joy. Cecil might be pleased to learn that they had saved London Bridge, but he would not be happy with a thunderous blast breaking the peace of Her Majesty.

‘Now then, Mr Shakespeare,’ Adam said, ‘pray tell me, what do you think that ship is, ahead one mile? Does that bark look like your Sieve?’

Shakespeare shrugged his shoulders. One vessel looked like another to him. From this distance there was no way of knowing. ‘We will need to close on her to tell.’

‘Close to four cables,’ Adam ordered his helmsman. He turned back to Shakespeare. ‘Eight hundred yards. Nearer than that would be insanity. I am not firing cannon at a ship packed with ten thousand or more pounds of powder when I’m broadside to her, sir, for she would blast us all to heaven.’

Boltfoot nodded grimly. ‘That’s her. I’d recognise the bastardly bark from ten miles, let alone one.’

‘Helm,’ Adam called. ‘Bark ahead, mid-stream. Master gunner, prepare to fire starboard sakers, four cables. Helmsman, maintain course, then turn about on order.’

Shakespeare grasped James Adam’s sleeve. ‘God’s blood, you cannot fire on her. Look about her, sir. The river teems with ships and boats.’

Adam shook his arm free from Shakespeare’s grip. ‘Would you have us wait until we are outside Greenwich Palace, or the Tower? Or why not let her sail merrily into the bridge itself, which is, you say, their plan? Do you think there will be fewer vessels as we approach the great wharves and dockyards? The Thames is the busiest waterway on the face of the earth, Mr Shakespeare. There is no safe place to do this. I will attempt to take her as she passes the Erith marshes, then all we can do is pray.’

He sighed in resignation. ‘Fire at will, Mr Adam.’

James Adam grinned. ‘Our figurehead is a tiger, Mr Shakespeare. Let me show you how we open our jaws and bite…’

The first volley fell fifty yards short of the Sieve. ‘Come about, helmsman,’ Adam called. ‘Master gunner, prepare for a second salvo, larboard sakers, range plus fifty yards.’

From the poop of the Swiftsure, Shakespeare could see frantic activity aboard the target ship. He felt the tight knot of fear. If the Sieve got through to London Bridge, it would be slaughter on a scale never known.

‘Fire all guns!’

The second volley roared forth and the Swiftsure reverberated with the recoil, throwing up a great wash of water.

‘A hit!’ the master gunner cried out.

They had all seen the ball smash into the sterncastle of the bark. They saw, too, the mad racing of those aboard the Sieve, crowding to the back of the ship to see whence the attack had come.

‘Come about again, master gunner. Starboard sakers, three and a half cables.’

Shakespeare squinted through the fug of gunpowder smoke that belched from the saker cannons, medium-sized guns that could hurl a five-pound ball a mile or more. He tried to peer closer; one of those on the Sieve was climbing down a rope ladder to a cockboat.

‘Fire!’

The sakers boomed again. The Swiftsure rocked violently. Smoke billowed up. Time seemed to stand still.

And then it happened…