Revenger

Chapter 48

The day was bright and autumnal.There were no church bells, but there was hope in the air; hope that the chillier weather would bring an end to the plague, or at least slow down its ravages.

John Shakespeare and his wife walked side by side along the leaf-strewn streets of Greenwich. They were going to a wedding. Shakespeare did not wish to go, but his wife, although apprehensive, had insisted. He had shrugged his shoulders and agreed. His marriage was strong and loving once more; he did not want to threaten its stability by gainsaying Catherine over something as trifling as a wedding.

As they arrived at the church porch, all bedecked with autumn flowers and foliage, Shakespeare stayed his wife. “Wait. See who is there.”

He raised his head. Across the way, he could see Justice Young, the magistrate of London, and Newall, the chief pursuivant, both close associates of Topcliffe.

Catherine’s mouth turned down in distaste. She knew those faces well. She knew that, like Topcliffe, they would happily hang her and every other Catholic.

“We should go,” Shakespeare said. “This was a bad idea. I want no part of it.”

“No, John, we must stay.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded firmly. “I am sure.”

They walked into the plain church. Twenty or thirty people, mostly men, sat on wooden chairs. Briefly, they turned around to see the newcomers. Shakespeare recognized Thomas Fitzherbert, a pursuivant. Catherine spotted Pickering, the lumbering Gatehouse gaoler. He was mopping the sweat from his brow, though the day was not hot.

“This is not a church of God but of the Devil,” Shakespeare said, dismayed.

“Sit down, John. We must stay, though it break my heart.”

They sat toward the rear of the little church. In place of the altar, there was a bare table. The colored windows had all been smashed and replaced by clear panes. The place was bleak, without hope or joy.

A murmur disturbed the stillness. The bridegroom was coming in. His wedding finery could do nothing to disguise the fact that he was a thick-set ruffian with slimed hair, thin beard, and leering smile: Topcliffe’s apprentice Nicholas Jones, now to be a married man. He smirked at John Shakespeare.

“Poor Anne,” Catherine said, shaking her head sadly as Jones and his bent and watery-eyed father, Basforde Jones, walked up the aisle to await the bride. She had been driven mad through ill-usage by Topcliffe and Jones, scarce able to admit to herself the enormity of what she had done to her family and Father Robert Southwell, who now languished in solitary confinement in the Tower, almost forgotten.

The first Shakespeare and Catherine saw of Anne Bellamy was her swollen belly. She was heavy with child and waddled in, head bowed, shoulders slumped. She had put on a lot of weight since Catherine last saw her, much of it due to her appetite rather than the child. Her voluminous dress, with slashed sleeves and protruding stomacher, was brown and murrey and studded with gemstones at the wrists. In the absence of her father, she was on the arm of Richard Topcliffe. He was dressed in black with silver-thread trimmings to his velvet doublet. He strode in, proud and pugnacious, swinging his silver-tipped blackthorn.

Together, Topcliffe and the bride walked to the front of the church, where she stopped beside her intended and smiled at him. Topcliffe looked around at the gathered congregation. It seemed for a moment as though he would take a bow, like a player on stage. Then he grinned at Shakespeare and Catherine and turned to face the front, where the parson waited to perform the ceremony.

Catherine tried to stand up, to stop this mockery of a wedding, but her husband motioned her to sit down. “There is nothing to be done, Catherine. She came here of her own accord. I saw her smile at Jones. There is no impediment to this match.”

“But it is a travesty, John.”

“Yes, I fear it is.”

Like groundlings at a tragedy, Shakespeare and his wife witnessed the wedding. When the parson declared Nicholas Jones and Anne man and wife, it was too much to bear. Catherine stood and walked to the door. Shakespeare followed her.

“How can such a thing be allowed, John?”

“Who is to stop a man and woman marrying, if they both so desire it? She said ‘I will’ with a clear, strong voice.”

“She did, did she not? A most fortunate young woman, she is.” Topcliffe was at their side, striding along with them, unbidden and unwanted. “A lucky slattern to have found a man like my Nick to make an honest woman of her.”

Shakespeare tried to keep his wife walking, but she stopped and squared up to Topcliffe. “She is a victim of your cruelty, Mr. Topcliffe. You have used her ill and brought her to this state. She knows not what she does.”

Topcliffe leered. “Oh, but she does. She can’t get enough of him. He scratches her itch. But she will bring my boy a fine dowry. Her family does not know it, but they will give Preston Manor and all its lands and farm-holdings to my lad Nick, whether they like it or not. Sixty-six pounds a year, that will be worth to him. He will be a wealthy young gentleman, which is no more than he deserves for his loyalty to his master and his monarch. And in return, she will no longer be thought the dirty, prick-hungry popish whore that we know her to be, but Mrs. Nicholas Jones, gentlewoman and Protestant. Now, is that not a fine trade-off?”

“And where are her family today, Mr. Topcliffe?” Catherine demanded as Shakespeare tried to pull her away. “Have you killed them all yet?”

Topcliffe gave her a look of pure scorn. “Her family will learn soon enough. They will learn what it means to harbor lewd priests. They will find what it means to cross Topcliffe. As will you. Soon enough. You and your stinking pups, dog-mother whore.” He turned to Shakespeare. “And you-you and your brother-you are both fortunate to be alive, for you have been slithering with toothed serpents and greased priests, oiled and slippery in a tub of the purple demon’s chrism…”

Shakespeare lingered a long moment with his hand on the hilt of his dagger. He had no sword with him. He did not take swords to weddings. He looked coldly down into Topcliffe’s eyes and came as close as ever he had to killing a man in hot blood.

Instead he turned his back on the Queen’s servant. “Come, Mistress Shakespeare,” he said to her. “Let us go home where the air is clean.”