Revenger

Chapter 24

As Shakespeare rode slowly the last mile to the church at Wanstead, the mortbell knelled clear across the meadows. It rang just one note again and again, a deep, dread clang that could only mean a body was to be laid to rest in the cold earth.

The mourners were gathered in the graveyard close by the Le Neve house and on their land. So few were there, a mere ten or so, that a passer-by might have thought it a pauper’s bleak interment.

Shakespeare reined in his mare a hundred yards outside the churchyard wall, and watched as the little band began walking through the porch into the church. Sir Toby and Cordelia Le Neve were there, attired all in black. So were the maid, Miranda, and the sour and ancient retainer, Dodsley. A minister was speaking the plain new funeral service as they walked. On his right was another man, a wide-brimmed black felt hat held against the chest of his dark broadcloth coat. He looked straight ahead, his face stern, as though cast from iron.

At their head, four men in workmen’s leather jerkins carried the simple coffin into the church.

Cordelia Le Neve turned and saw Shakespeare. Shock crossed her features, then anger. She touched her husband’s arm and he looked across at the intruder, too.

Miranda Salter also saw him but immediately looked away, as if ashamed for ever having spoken to him, or perhaps from shame at having betrayed their conversation to her mistress. Shakespeare dismounted and walked the mare to the church wall, where he tied her to a ring by the wrought-iron gate beside some other horses. In the yard outside the church, there were new crosses and several fresh-dug graves, and he wondered, briefly, whether the plague had begun its dread work in these parts.

He followed the mourners into the church. A hole had been dug at the eastern end of the chancel and mounds of earth piled up on either side. Sir Toby strode toward him, fury in his eyes. “You are not welcome here,” he said. “You intrude on private grief, sir, and I will not have it.”

“Sir Toby, I am inquiring into a murder. I must talk with you again. And with others.”

Le Neve’s hand was on the hilt of his sword, though he did not draw it from its scabbard. “Go, sir, go. Or I shall cut you down like a Frenchie, even in this, the Lord’s house.”

Shakespeare looked across to the man with the hat and the dark broadcloth coat. “Is that Mr. Winterberry, your daughter’s bridegroom?”

“It is no business of yours, sir. Go.”

Shakespeare ignored his entreaties and threats and walked on along the nave toward the mourning party.

“Mr. Winterberry?”

“Yes?”

The two men stood face-to-face, both tall, though Winterberry was older and his somber clothes did not hang well on his angular frame. His face was sallow and serious.

“I would speak with you, sir, about the death of your wife.”

“She was not my wife.”

“I had believed you were wed, Mr. Winterberry.”

“In church, but not in the bedchamber. In the eyes of man, but not of God, who sees all things. Now, may I ask who you are?”

“My name is Shakespeare. I am inquiring into the murder of Amy and the boy, Joe Jaggard.”

“And do you think this to be the meet and proper time to talk of such things?”

“It is a most heinous crime. I would have thought you would wish it solved.”

“She was frail, Mr. Shakespeare. She had the frailty and vanity of woman. The profane enemy, the minister of darkness, took her to his abominable breast. Look to the instruments of the Devil if you would know more of this death, sir.”

“I insist on talking with you, Mr. Winterberry, unless you wish me to fetch a mittimus from the justice to take you into custody for questioning.”

Winterberry stared at him hard. Whatever else he was, he was a merchant, and merchants were practical men who did deals every day. “Come to Indies Wharf by the Tower this afternoon and I will answer your questions, Mr. Shakespeare, though I can think of none that pertain to me. Now go, sir, as Sir Toby has demanded of you.”

Lady Le Neve came to Shakespeare and took his elbow and pulled him away firmly but without force. “Our daughter is being buried here alongside her forefathers and mother, Mr. Shakespeare. Have you no shame?”

“And what of the boy?”

“He took his life. He took Amy’s life. He has been buried at the crossroads. Now go.”

Shakespeare looked around at the little gathering and saw nothing but hostility. There was no more to be gained in this place today. He bowed in acknowledgment of their grief and to honor the dead girl about to be lowered into the earth, then walked slowly out of the little church and back through the churchyard toward the gate, where his mare waited patiently.

On the brow of the incline to the west, he saw a horseman, stock-still beneath a sycamore tree. It was impossible to make out his features from this distance, but something in the way he sat, thin and wiry like a stoat, told Shakespeare the watcher was Slyguff.

Shakespeare mounted his horse, pulled the reins southerly, and spurred her into a light trot.

And still the mortbell tolled.

Shakespeare spoke to Perkin Sidesman and told him that if anyone were to ask, he was to say the school would be closed down for the summer but would reopen in October. If anyone wished to speak with him, they were to leave a note or spoken message. “I badly want to hear word of Jack and Boltfoot.”

“I understand, master,” the groom said without enthusiasm. He did not look happy about the extra responsibility loaded on his shoulders, but then he rarely looked happy about anything.

Shakespeare took a wherry from the green and slimy water-stairs at the Steelyard and headed downstream. On the south bank, as he passed, he watched fishermen pulling in draftnets of salmon. The tide was with the wherry, but would soon be turning; the narrow race between the struts of London Bridge was a hazardous affair, and one which, when the current was strong, many preferred to avoid by disembarking and walking to the other side of the bridge. Shakespeare did not have time for such delicacy. He held his breath as the watermen steered the craft at speed through the churning white water.

Glad to be through and alive, he breathed again, only to catch a lungful of the stink that blew from the Billingsgate fish market. Further downriver, Smart’s and Morris’s quays were thick with shipping, all moored alongside each other in a profusion of spars, rigging, and furled sails. The whole of the Thames here was a chaotic mass of proud-masted vessels: a hundred or more ships of all sizes riding at anchor in midstream, lying on their sides on the muddy banks, careened for the removal of barnacles and weeds, or standing at the wharves for discharge and loading of cargoes.

Past Customs House on the north bank, then the Tower and St. Katharine’s Dock, finally the watermen guided the little vessel in among the tangle of carracks, barks, and flyboats that encumbered the frontage of Indies Wharf.

Shakespeare paid the men fourpence, then stepped ashore onto the long quayside, hemmed in on one side by ships and on the other by warehouses. Gantries and tall cranes of oak and elm stretched out across the quay and river, creating a cacophony of creaking timbers.

A family of brown rats scurried along the edge of the wharf, unafraid. Shakespeare strode among them and went through an arched entrance into the largest of the warehouses. He found a foreman docker, who directed him to the countinghouse on the landward side of the warehouse.

Jacob Winterberry stood at the end of a long, well-polished table in a rich room; intricate plasterwork on the ceiling and ornate oak wainscoting on the lower portions of the walls seemed to tell much about his wealth. He still wore his funeral clothes; perhaps, thought Shakespeare, such somber dress was his daily attire.

A clerk was reading from a bill of lading. “Guinea coast. St. George del Mina, aboard the Tempest, carrack of six hundred tons, outward bound: two hundred pounds linen, two hundred pounds kersey, five hundred axe heads, same number hammer heads, one thousand English arrows, five hundred French bolts, one hundred fifty Flemish brass basins, assorted hats of felt, pins, trinkets, and beads to fill two casks, two hundred each of daggers and swords…”

The clerk stopped, as if noticing for the first time that there was another man in the room.

Winterberry looked up and met the newcomer’s eyes. “Ah, yes, Mr. Shakespeare.” He said the words in a businesslike fashion, no welcoming smile or greeting hand proffered. He met his clerk’s eyes. The clerk quickly gathered together his quills, documents, and ledgers and hurried from the room, bowing low as he went. “Now, what would you ask me?”

Shakespeare noticed that a large book lay before Winterberry on the table. Winterberry followed his eyes and put his right hand squarely down on the book. “Yes, Mr. Shakespeare, it is the Holy Bible, which informs everything I do and everything I say. Every portion of my trade with the wider world is done in Christ’s name, to bring the word of God to those benighted savages still cloaked in darkness.”

“Would you like to swear on it now, that you will answer my questions truthfully?”

“I live by the Book every day of my life, Mr. Shakespeare. I do not need to prove to some lowly officer of the Searcher that I speak the truth.”

“You are a proud man, Mr. Winterberry.”

“If I am, then I do repent it and beg the Lord’s forgiveness, for pride is a deadly sin.”

Shakespeare thought he had never seen such a stern, closed face. He did not know this man, but he knew he did not like him. “You had reason to murder Amy Le Neve and Joe Jaggard.” He said the words as a statement, not a question, hoping for some reaction, some fissure in the rock of Winterberry’s features.

“You were at the funeral, Mr. Shakespeare. You heard what Sir Toby Le Neve said. The Jaggard boy murdered Amy with poison and then took his own life in like manner. That is the sheriff’s verdict and the matter is closed.”

“That is not the belief of the coroner, I understand, nor of the Searcher of the Dead.”

“Well, then, they must take up the case with the sheriff and try to have it reopened. As for me, I consider the matter now to be between those two young people and their Maker. I pray they can find salvation, though the Lord will have to be very forgiving.”

“She was your wife, Mr. Winterberry. Can you dismiss her death-her murder-so lightly?”

“She was a purple strumpet, Mr. Shakespeare. She chose the World, the Devil, and the Flesh, and she was struck down as all such idolatrous harlots will be struck down.” Winterberry spoke with barely a pause between words. The words were angry, but the voice was quiet and cold. “With her painted face, she was too vain to realize that she would, within the blink of an eye, be screaming for all eternity in the fire.”

Winterberry’s face was still a mask of stone, but Shakespeare noted that the veins on his hand were raised and white as he pressed down hard on the Bible.

“Then why marry her?”

Winterberry raised his hand from the Book. He crossed his arms. His voluble voice became quieter. “I wanted a wife, Mr. Shakespeare. Someone to manage my domestic affairs and home and bear my children under God’s divine order. Do you have a wife?”

Shakespeare thought of Catherine and Mary, at present somewhere a few miles to the north of here on the first stage of their long journey through the heart of England to the little market town of Masham, in the desolate shire of York.

“I had never had time for such things, being precluded by my business and my calling. Where to find one unsullied by the world? All around me I saw the ensigns of lust, sloth, and gluttony. I saw foul abuses-women daubed like butterflies. Observe the butterfly, sir, how she flutters all pretty about the garden, then alights on a dog turd.”

“You thought her young and untouched?”

For the first time, Shakespeare imagined he saw a human emotion behind the mask, a crushed sadness about the eyes. “Indeed, I did hope her to be a virtuous woman. I have known Sir Toby many years. I thought a daughter of his would be pure and young enough to bear me children, and I wished to help Sir Toby, whom I knew to be in difficult straits. Even in the tents of the unclean, I thought our match would mock the malice of the enemy. I was wrong. Satan had already sunk his bladed nails into her.”

“So it was not her pretty face, her young flesh, or the proud name she bore that attracted you to her?”

“You accuse me of lust and avarice. Why should I listen to this?”

“Then it is untrue?”

“It was what I took to be her purity, sir.”

“And when you discovered she was not pure?”

“This is intolerable, Mr. Shakespeare. You berate me like the Antichrist.”

“Why did you ride away without looking for Amy that night?” He did not answer.

“Could it be that you knew what had happened to her, that she already lay bloodied and murdered? You had followed her and bludgeoned her and Joe. Is that how it was?”

“No, Mr. Shakespeare, that is not what happened. I did not search for her because I knew that she had gone with him. I knew then what she was, what foul vice she was about. Why should I look when I expected them to return, flushed and sated?”

“You observed her leaving the bridale with Jaggard?” Shakespeare saw dour fury in Winterberry’s eyes, very close to the surface. Could it be triggered to violence, or was he in control?

“Yes,” Winterberry said, spitting the word. “Yes, I saw them moving as the chariot wheels of Satan to their damnable, abominable bed of grass and their vile carnality. I saw them go where they might rut like the beasts of the field. Why would I search for her, Mr. Shakespeare? I would rather pluck out my eyes than let them fall on such a vision of hell.”

“What did you do then, Mr. Winterberry?”

“Do? What should I do?”

“Most men would have stood up there and then and ridden off into the night. You stayed, though.”

Winterberry hesitated. “I was confused. I could not comprehend what I was seeing. We had been married in her father’s church a mere two or three hours earlier! Now she is buried there, beneath the ground where we stood and made our vows.”

“It seems extraordinary to me that you neither followed them nor left the bridale.”

Winterberry bowed his head as if crushed. “Yes. I see that now. But then… Mr. Shakespeare, I did not know of such things. I still do not.”

“Did you leave the bridale at any time?”

“No.”

“Could anyone who was there testify to that?”

Winterberry regained his composure. “There was dancing and music and merriment. There were venal sins, horrible in their abomination: gluttony, greed, lust such as you might find in the circles of hell. I saw bottle-ale, Satan’s device to keep us from the narrow path, and fumes belching from the dark chasms of their bodies. How would they note me or my movements through such a cloud of mist and error?”

Shakespeare closed his eyes for a moment. “How many were at the bridale?”

“Twenty, fifty, I know not and care less. It was something to be endured. I have had enough of these questions. Begone, Mr. Shakespeare, before I have you marched from here.”

The darkness was brewing, but Shakespeare carried on regardless. He had already goaded him to doubt, could he now provoke the man to thunderous rage? “I have but a few questions more, Mr. Winterberry. When the hue and cry went up, you could have told someone what you had seen.”

“And trumpet my shame to the world?”

Shakespeare almost felt sympathy for this strange, cold man. He was severe, almost frantic, in his religion, and yet he was a man, too. And what man would know how to deal with the adultery of his bride?

“What of the lad, Joe Jaggard? Did you know him?”

Winterberry scowled and paused, considering his reply. “Jaggard? I may have met him, but I paid him no heed. I took him for a vulgar, godless youth.”

“What were the circumstances of your meeting?”

He hesitated again. “I am not sure I recall. I was at Wanstead frequently, you understand, treating with Sir Toby. I took him for an estate hand.”

Shakespeare was not convinced. Winterberry would have been well aware of Jaggard; a man will always know his rival in matters of love.

“Mr. Winterberry, you said you wished to help Sir Toby in return for the hand of his daughter?”

“We were friends of old. He had fallen on hard times. I was able to help him.”

“What was the portion you were to bring to the marriage?”

“That is between Sir Toby and me. It is not something either of us would wish bruited about. Anyway, it is done with now. The transaction will not happen.”

“You are withholding the settlement?”

“Why should I not?”

Why indeed, thought Shakespeare. Winterberry was a merchant; this marriage was a deal like any other as far as he was concerned, and the goods were not only soiled but had not even been delivered to his bed. It was a sour logic, but it fitted. Shakespeare changed tack.

“Tell me about your business interests, sir. With whom do you trade?”

“I trade with the world. I send trinkets and I send the word of the Lord into the Africas and the Levant and the Spanish Indies. I send light into their darkness, and the Lord has seen that it is good and has allowed me to prosper, providing yet more means to do His work.”

“These are difficult days, Mr. Winterberry. The war with Spain is never-ending. Venturing great fortunes on expeditions of trade is fraught with danger, is it not?”

“Indeed, which is why I say prayers of thanksgiving every day for the blessings He has bestowed upon me.”

“I heard the list of commodities you send out, Mr. Winterberry. What goods do you hope in return?”

“Silver, gold, spices, and souls. Now, if you are done with me, I have much work to be doing.”

“One last question.” It was the question Shakespeare most wanted to ask-and he looked closely for any reaction in the long, stony face that confronted him. “Do you, Mr. Winterberry, know aught of the Roanoke colony in Virginia?”

Winterberry’s head jerked slightly backwards, as if thrown by the question. “Roanoke?” he said, frowning. “What has Roanoke to do with your inquiries, Mr. Shakespeare?”

Shakespeare was firm. “I cannot say, but I would like to hear whether or not you know of the place and the colony founded there.”

“I do know of it, of course, for I am one of Sir Walter Ralegh’s investors. I was happy to lend my name and my gold to the venture, for I know the colonists to be unspotted lambs of the Lord. It is only meet that such folk should be in the vanguard of this brave world of Virginia. I am certain, too, that they will be found well and thriving in time, for the Lord will care for these His servants.”

“Do you know any of the colonists?”

“I know Mr. White, but he is now in Ireland, I do believe.”

“And his daughter, Eleanor Dare?”

“I know of her. Why do you ask these strange questions, Mr. Shakespeare? What possible interest can you have in the colony?”

“I have been making inquiries on behalf of my lord of Essex, who has an interest in the matter. Mr. Winterberry, do you think it possible that this same Eleanor Dare, born White, could now be in England?”

“Mr. Shakespeare, I do not know what madness you are engaged in, but I know that Eleanor Dare could not be in England. If any had returned, the corporation would have been the first to know. Do you think the searchers at the ports would not have informed us? They send postriders to me whenever a ship arrives at any port from Sandwich to Falmouth. Now I have answered all your questions with plain and honest speaking, and I must ask you to leave. Let me accompany you to the water-stairs.”

Winterberry walked with ponderous purpose toward the door. He had picked up the Bible from the table and now held it in both hands behind his back, in the way another man might carry a concealed weapon.

The air in the large central warehouse fronting Indies Wharf was thick with the exotic aroma of spices, all ranged in great casks along the walls. England could not get enough of them to flavor the foodstuffs on its tables.

“Do you enjoy the scent of spices, Mr. Shakespeare?”

“Who could not, Mr. Winterberry?”

“They are God’s most wondrous gift to us: nutmeg, cinnamon, cumin, mace, coriander, hot spices, ginger, and the greatest of them all, sugar.” They came to the arched entrance to the landing stage, where barrels were being loaded by hand and by crane onto a huge carrack. The name emblazoned on its bow was Tempest.

“God speed, Mr. Shakespeare. I am sorry you have had there wasted journeys today.” Once more, he did not proffer a hand to be shaken.

The jib of the crane above them swung out from the vessel, pushed by a docker standing on the deck. The man in the wheel cabin worked hard at the pedals, raising the pulleys by a system of cogs. Shakespeare looked up and saw the barrel directly above them. Suddenly it was released from the boom. It was coming down, dropping toward them, falling. Shakespeare thrust his arm at Winterberry’s chest and threw him to the ground.

The cask fell to the quay with explosive force, cracking open in a shower of staves, splinters, and a clattering array of metal goods. A copper platter flew up and struck Shakespeare hard on his lower back, but the barrel itself had missed him. He realized he was lying over Winterberry’s prostrate form and quickly rose, dusting himself down as he did so. He rubbed his back where it had been hit.

He looked to the man in the crane cabin; he had an expression of pure astonishment and horror. Then Shakespeare looked to the deck of the ship where the docker had pushed out the jib. There was no one to be seen.

As Winterberry struggled to his feet, Shakespeare tore across the landing board and leapt onto the deck of the Tempest. A man was sitting inside the bulkhead, idly smoking a pipe.

“Where did that docker go? The one pushing the jib.”

“He should be here on the main deck, working. He’s a day laborer. Never saw him before today.”

Shakespeare loped to the bows and looked down into the gray, lapping depths of the Thames. He ran back to the sterncastle. There was no sign of the man. At the larboard side, there was another ship lashed to the Tempest, and another beyond that. The docker could easily have leapt across from deck to deck. Angrily, Shakespeare walked back to the quayside.

“Did you see him?”

Winterberry said nothing. His face was grave. He signaled to the crane driver to lower the ropes and then examined the frayed ends where the barrel had come away. The strands were sheared. Winterberry ran a finger over the frayed end.

“This was cut.”

“Who wants to kill you?”

“I would ask the same of you, Mr. Shakespeare. It seems to me you delve in murky, ungodly waters. I can think of no man who would do me harm. Now, good-day to you. My wherryman will take you back upstream, if you wish. You will find no hire boats here.”

Shakespeare met Winterberry’s eyes. He had one more question for him. “Did you know that the boy Joe Jaggard was also interested in Roanoke, Mr. Winterberry-that he was searching for Eleanor Dare?”

Winterberry’s humorless expression did not change. “Good-day, Mr. Shakespeare,” he said, and turned away.

As he was rowed out into midstream, Shakespeare gazed back at Indies Wharf. A dark figure stood in the archway to the spice warehouse. Jacob Winterberry was watching him go.