The Heretics

Chapter 7

‘HE LOOKS A little better, Jane,’ Boltfoot said, staring at his two-year-old son who lay in the small wooden cot he had made for the boy. ‘Do you not think he looks more lively?’

‘I do so think, Boltfoot. I pray it is so, leastwise.’

‘And is he taking more food?’

Jane nodded. ‘A little more.’

‘Did I not tell you it would be so? We have no need for physicians and apothecaries with their unholy magic and conjuring of spirits.’

He might say such things, but Jane knew her husband worried even more than she did about the boy.

‘Boltfoot Cooper, I do sometimes think the years you spent at sea turned your brain to pease pudding.’

Boltfoot smiled at his wife then leant into the cot and kissed the boy. He patted Jane on the small of her back and was about to take his leave of her and go in search of Mr Shakespeare, when she stayed him.

‘Why is it that we never celebrate your birthday, Boltfoot? What day were you born?’

‘You say my brain is turned to pease pudding, Jane. What of yours, to be asking such daft questions? I don’t even know the year I was born, let alone the day.’

Jane let him go. How was she to discover the information Dr Forman needed to cast a chart if Boltfoot did not know it himself?

They were all living in cramped quarters, in the part of the house that had survived the fire of last year. There were still smoke-black marks on timbers, but the structure, close to the Thames at Dowgate, was sound enough. The part of the building that had been utterly destroyed had been cleared away and was already being rebuilt, from the ground up. This time the house would be smaller, with a larger garden and improved stabling.

Shakespeare looked up from his table, where he had been scribbling a note to Cecil, telling him of the meeting with the Countess of Kent and her circle. He would need to speak with Lady Susan again, and preferably without the distractions of her companions. He wished to learn more about her ward, the sullen Beatrice Eastley, too. Something seemed not quite right there. He would also welcome another meeting with Lady Trevail; but that was another matter.

‘You summoned me, master?’

‘Ah yes, Boltfoot. I take it there is still no word of Mr Garrick Loake?’

‘No, master.’

Shakespeare cursed. The man had disappeared like smoke in air. Well, Loake would have to wait. He would add word of this in the letter to Cecil, and urge him to engage Anthony Friday to find the would-be informant. Friday was unreliable, but no one knew the world of players and playhouses better than he did.

Shakespeare turned back to Boltfoot. ‘We are riding for Buckinghamshire. Have horses saddled.’

‘Yes, master.’

‘And Boltfoot . . .’

Boltfoot stopped. It seemed to Shakespeare that he had aged five years in the past few months since the fire. This latest sickness afflicting their child had only made matters worse.

‘How does little John fare?’

‘Better, master. Better.’

‘Good. Well, if he requires remedies or if you wish him to be seen by a physician, I will bear the cost.’

‘Thank you, Mr Shakespeare. I am sure we won’t need that.’

‘As you will, but the offer is there. And send Andrew to me, if you would.’

Shakespeare continued to write his note to Cecil. Within a minute his adopted son, Andrew Woode, appeared in the doorway.

‘Andrew.’

‘You wanted me, Father?’

‘I had meant to talk with you at length this day, Andrew. But I must be away on Queen’s business. For the present, I desire you to know that I have been considering your suggestion with great care and I have concluded that you are truly set on a seafaring life. So, yes, you may go with Drake and Hawkins with my blessing, if they will accept you. Mr Hakluyt’s book Principal Navigations has much to answer for, I fear.’

Andrew beamed. ‘Thank you, Father.’

‘You should talk with Boltfoot. No man knows the hazards and joys of the sea better than he does.’

Andrew laughed. ‘I have already spoken with Boltfoot. He thinks I am mad to even consider going with Drake on his voyage. He says he will rob me and treat me like a dog. Also, that I will die of scurvy if I have not first drowned or been killed by a Spaniard.’

‘And you are not deterred? You may have the size and strength of a man, Andrew, and I know how brave you are, but you are still only fourteen years.’

Andrew walked forward and knelt before Shakespeare. He kissed his hand. ‘The world is out there, beyond the western sea, and it holds my future. I am more certain of this than anything in my life.’

Shakespeare gazed down fondly at the boy he regarded as his own son. Andrew’s short life had not been easy, and Shakespeare knew that he had considered his decision to go to sea with great thoroughness.

‘Then God speed you, boy. And learn well. Master the astrolabe and quadrant, the hourglass, the compass and the chart, for then you will be a true mariner and indispensable to your captain. But that is for tomorrow. For today, I have an errand for you.’ He folded the letter he had been writing and sealed it, then handed it to Andrew. ‘Take this to Sir Robert Cecil for me.’

Regis Roag slid from the saddle in the noisy Plaza de la Magdalena. He had been riding since dawn, but he was still cool and his long, oak-brown hair was unruffled. With sharp, experienced eyes, he glanced around at the bustle of traders, the working men, the women scrubbing stone steps and the promenading señoras in their mantillas. All the time, he looked for the face that might seem out of place. As a hunter of men, he knew how to spot a predator.

There was warmth and the scent of orange in the evening air. Roag breathed deeply. Seville was a fine place. The magnificent buildings, the wide-open squares, the perfume of strange plants and incense, the many religious houses, the workers in gold: all spoke of a town created by God. This was the wealthiest city in the greatest empire in history – a world away from the mud, stench and squalor of lowly London, the city that had spat him out like a stone, and its dirty neighbour Southwark, the place of his birth.

Tethering his horse to the base of a palm tree, he composed a smile and pushed open the door of the four-storey, anonymous house that held the grand title of the College of St Gregory. It was an inadequate building for its purpose, a poor tenement wedged between a bakery with intoxicating aromas and a leather shop that exuded animal stench.

He recoiled at the noxious blend of stinks. This was no place for the training of young men in the disciplines of faith. The boys who came here from England needed to pray and meditate in quiet solitude if they were to return to their homeland as God’s soldiers and to die as martyrs. Here, they were closeted together like sheep in a pen. In the high summer, they sweltered, with no relief from the cloying heat and the stale sweat of each other’s unwashed bodies.

Even as he stepped inside, he sensed panic in the air. A boy, no more than eleven years of age, was scurrying past. Roag grabbed him by the shoulder. ‘Where is Father Persons?’

The boy was wide-eyed. ‘He is with Thomas Eaglet.’

‘Where?’

‘In the sickroom, at the back.’

‘Take me there.’

A group of robed men stood around a bed. Roag instantly spotted Father Robert Persons among them. He was standing beside his assistant, Father Joseph Creswell.

Roag touched Persons on the shoulder. Slowly, he turned around and Roag saw that the priest’s once-handsome eyes were deep and haggard.

Persons made the sign of the cross. ‘Dominus vobiscum, my son.’

Roag bowed, his mane of hair falling about his glowing face. ‘Et cum spiritu tuo, Father.’

‘You have arrived at a most sad time, Mr Roag.’

‘So it seems.’

‘Thomas Eaglet is close to death.’

Roag looked beyond Persons to the shrunken figure curled up on the cot, laid on his side to minimise the pain. But it seemed Eaglet was already past such worldly cares. His shallow breathing was only just audible.

To Roag, the dying man’s body looked like raw flesh on a butcher’s counter. He gazed on the loathsome mess of meat with interest, nothing more. No skin was visible save on Eaglet’s face and hands.

‘How has he come to this state, Father?’

‘He scourged himself with a flail. It is white martyrdom. That is what we will call it, but it is a waste. It is not true martyrdom. It will be the second such death at St Gregory’s this year. Such things unsettle our other young men and boys.’

Roag nodded. More than the unsettling of the boys here, he realised that if news of the event reached England it would not reflect well upon the Society of Jesus. ‘I will end his misery.’ His hand went to his dagger.

Shock registered on Persons’s face. He reached out and restrained Roag’s hand. ‘Indeed, you will not. God will decide the time.’

Roag removed his slender fingers from the dagger and said nothing more.

Persons shook his head. ‘I am told young Eaglet and others have risen every midnight these two weeks past, to scourge themselves with the discipline in front of the Blessed Sacrament. They must be commended for such diligence in the mortification of the flesh, but Eaglet did not know when to stop. Why would he not stop? He has lost so much blood.’ Persons suddenly steeled himself and touched the dying man’s hand, one of the few parts of the body that still looked human. He turned to Father Chamberlain, who was acting as nurse. ‘Has extreme unction been given?’

‘Yes, Father.’

Persons walked across the room and picked up a heavy iron brace, studded with short spikes designed to dig into the flesh and keep wounds open, however rotten they became.

‘He wore this, Mr Roag. The Lord only knows where he obtained it. We must all pray for his soul. He is a very brave young man. You know, when he first came here I doubted his faith, but he has proved me wrong.’ Persons made the sign of the cross over the forehead and face of the young man in the cot, then turned away. ‘Come, Mr Roag, let us go to my office.’

The room was austere. Nothing but a table, chairs and papers. Its only ornament was a gilded cross on the wall. A shaft of late sunlight lit the thin arm muscles of the crucified Christ.

‘Is everything ready?’ Persons asked. ‘The ships arranged, the money all in place, your men trained?’

Roag had a youthful smile that would win over maidens and emperors with its easy charm. In his forty-third year, he could pass for a man of thirty, exuding warmth and confidence. ‘All is in place.’ He held up a scroll. ‘I have the authorisation of the casa.’

The document bore the seal of the casa de contratación – the house of trade – whose absolute seat of power rested within the Alcázar royal palace and whose word was law in all matters of shipping and without whose authority no vessel might leave Spain.

Persons nodded. ‘Good. Which just leaves the matter of the traitor. He is in the hands of the Holy Office. I shudder to think that we ever trusted him. I fear he will burn in this world and the next.’

A lazy tic fluttered in the parchment-thin skin around Persons’s left eye. There was a softness about the priest, but he had a certain aura. His beard was short and neat, his eye clever and wary. He had an intimate manner that turned those he met into either devoted friends or dedicated enemies. Roag knew he was not given to squeamish women’s ways, nor subject to doubts in matters of faith. Yet he could see that the prospect of burning live human flesh disturbed him, as though the stench would remain in his nostrils, like bitter wormwood, for all eternity.

‘Men such as Warner make life difficult for us here,’ Persons continued. ‘And yet it were better it did not come to the fire.’

‘Then we must make do,’ Roag said evenly. ‘I will go to the Castillo de Triana from here. I am sure I will have a hearing.’

Joseph Creswell, Persons’ loyal assistant, sensed his superior’s discomfort. ‘Remember, Father, the holy doctor Thomas Aquinas himself concluded that execution by the secular authorities was the proper way to deal with heretics who refuse to be reconciled. First, excommunication from the Church and if, stubbornly, they refuse to recant, then by His law they should be excluded from life itself. The fire is God’s hand.’

Persons nodded, but without conviction.

There was silence in the room. From outside came the shouts of Spanish traders and the thump of drums.

‘Would you be a king, Mr Roag?’ Persons said suddenly.

‘Would you have me be a king?’

Father Persons smiled and folded his arms. ‘Come, I will hear your confession now, before you embark on your great enterprise.’

Roag did not move. ‘No, Father. I will confess when I return to you, for I know I must commit mortal sins in this holy war. I cannot yet cast off my coat of steel.’

‘Do not imperil your immortal soul, Mr Roag.’

‘No, Father.’

Creswell watched from a first-floor window as Roag untethered his horse and trotted eastwards towards the fish market and the bridge over the Guadalquivir. ‘He is cold and mad,’ he said, half to himself, half to Robert Persons who sat at the table behind him. ‘He has no religion, only resentment.’

‘He will carry out the task we wish, in the way we desire it.’

‘Will he? Can we trust him that much?’

‘Have faith, Joseph, have faith. After all, it is said he is the son of a king.’

‘And do you truly believe he has royal blood in his veins?’

Persons shrugged his shoulders but did not reply.