The Heretics

Chapter 31

‘MIGHT I ASK, Mr Roag,’ Hugh Fitzgerald said, an edge of uncertainty in his voice, ‘about the mission?’

Regis Roag smiled. This was why they were so tense. They had been blooded like soldiers but now they wanted to know what more was expected of them. How would they react when the cascade of death was laid out before them?

The band had set up an encampment by the road a little way west of London. They had been here for several days, following their rendezvous and the long trek from the west. Eschewing inns, they had pitched camps in the woods and on the heaths, like any travelling company of players, scarcely noted as they passed. Roag had not been with them all the time, for he had business ahead, in London.

Now that they were settled and rested, it was time for them to learn what they must do and the parts each must play.

He studied them closely.

Hugh and Seamus Fitzgerald were the most easygoing of the band, yet even they were feeling the strain. Ovid Sloth had found them in the Irish College at Salamanca, where they were training for the priesthood. They had absolute belief in the rightness of the Catholic cause against Elizabeth and would do Roag’s bidding to the death. Their father, a cousin of the Earl of Desmond and of a rebellious nature, was a wealthy trader in good horses. After his death, the boys’ mother sent them to England for an education in the house of a northern gentleman, hoping to wean them off their father’s ways. But they had already inherited too much of his untamed spirit. In desperation, she ordered them to Spain for the priesthood. Sloth noted their potential the moment he saw them. Not only did they speak with English accents, they wanted nothing more than to fight and kill.

The deadliest ones were Ratbane and Paget. They were lower than dogs, dredged up by the Spanish from the barrel of the renegade English regiment of the Low Countries. They had gone with Roag on his little forays into London, as lethal as foxes in a covey of partridges. Two of a kind, they could kill to order without compunction. They would do what they were told and would not blink in the face of enemy fire.

And then there was Winnow. The cleverest of the lot, and the one that worried him the most.

Roag clapped his hands and summoned them to him. ‘Hugh has asked me the mission,’ he said. ‘Very well. I will tell you.’

Later, Dick Winnow sat apart, watching the others talk quietly around the campfire, seeing their tension. He put a quart pot of strong ale to his lips and drank it dry, then rose. The liquor gave him courage but did not dull his senses. He went over to Roag.

‘What is it, Dick?’

‘You know what it is, Mr Roag.’

‘Tell me anyway.’

‘This plan. It cannot work.’

Roag put his arm around Winnow’s shoulder. Winnow stiffened at the touch, but did not move away.

‘It will work, Dick. You have my word.’

‘But we will not survive—’

Roag hesitated. ‘Fear not. All will be well.’

But Winnow knew. ‘You remember I told you how my father died?’

‘I understand, Dick. We have all suffered grievously for our faith. That is why we are here and why we must be prepared to hazard our lives for God.’

Sacrifice our lives for God. That was what he meant.

Winnow had no wish to die. He wanted to kill.

‘Trust me.’

He did not look at Roag. He could not bear to see the lie in his eyes. ‘If I am to die for God, I want to prepare myself properly. All I require is the truth, Mr Roag.’

The truth? That, Roag knew, was the one thing none of them needed to hear, even though they might suspect it.

‘I have told you the truth, Dick. It is all carefully planned. God willing, we will all survive.’

Winnow turned at last to stare at Roag through the ale-gauze of his eyes. The liquor brought steadiness and revealed all. ‘Thank you, Mr Roag.’ He nodded with deference. ‘You have set my mind at rest.’

Except that he hadn’t, and they both knew it.

Roag might smile, but inside was only the icy darkness of hell. Winnow realised he had two choices: he must either kill, or escape. It was the only way to stay alive. Neither option would be easily accomplished.

A letter awaited Shakespeare when he awoke from a long sleep at Cecil’s mansion in the Strand. He recognised the hand immediately as that of his brother Will.

Come to me as soon as you may, brother. I have intelligence for you concerning Mr Friday. Written in haste, the Theatre, Shoreditch.

As he was pulling on his boots, the door opened, and a footman entered and bowed. ‘Mr Cooper is here for you, sir.’

Boltfoot back? Thank the Lord for that. ‘Please show him through to the hall, and tell Mistress Cooper that he has arrived.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Boltfoot presented a grim sight. He stood in the hall, seemingly more dead than alive. His shoulders were slumped, his face blue and yellow with bruising. He had rough, dirty bandages about his head. A long scab coated his cheek. His clothes were filthy, and not just from the journey back to London. Jane appeared from the interior of the house, and immediately gasped and put a hand to her mouth in horror.

‘Jane . . .’

He limped over to her and they embraced awkwardly.

Shakespeare left them a few moments and then intervened. ‘I have seen you in a bad way before, Boltfoot Cooper,’ he said, ushering him through into a smaller, more comfortable room. ‘But never have I witnessed a more dismal spectre than you present this day.’

Boltfoot could barely meet Shakespeare’s eye. ‘I have lost Ovid Sloth, master,’ he said quietly.

‘Well, for the moment I care more about you. Come in, refresh yourself and we shall talk of this anon. Jane, if you would clean your husband’s wounds, I shall meet him in an hour’s time.’

Will would have to wait a while. Shakespeare went in search of his girls, who were having lessons from one of the Cecil tutors. He watched them so intently that they began to giggle. He was encouraged by how quickly they had settled here in this safe place, and hoped that Ursula Dancer was equally secure. He did not worry for her; she had had a lifetime of looking out for herself.

When Boltfoot returned, cleaned up, Shakespeare took him through to Cecil’s library.

‘What happened, Boltfoot?’

‘I was hammered to the ground, kicked in the face and trodden on, master. But I fear Mr Rowse fared worse.’

‘Sit down. You had better tell me everything.’

Boltfoot lowered himself gently on to a settle. Shakespeare thought him horribly shrunken.

‘We were in Falmouth three days before I could secure a berth. At last I found a ship carrying tin and we all walked down to embark. That was when the attack came. I saw them, but we were overpowered. There were four of them, I think. They killed Mr Rowse with a pistol shot and clubbed me to the ground. I was about to be despatched myself when two seamen coming from an ordinary pushed my assailant away from me. I thought he would come back to finish me off, but a mob was gathering and he made good his getaway instead.’

‘What of Ovid Sloth?’

‘He was carried away on a cart.’

‘Do you believe him abducted or rescued by these men?’

‘From his smirk, I would say he was complicit, master.’

Shakespeare nodded. It had been his immediate thought. He wondered how these men had known that Boltfoot would be in Falmouth with Sloth. It was a troubling question, which made Shakespeare worry that there was a traitor inside Godolphin’s camp.

‘What manner of man was your assailant?’

‘He had a cowl against the weather, which was as stinking wet as a bilge, but I saw his face and eyes. He had a short beard. A woman might call him a handsome man. Perhaps my age, though he may have been a little younger.’

‘Did he say anything?’

‘Aye, he told me to go to hell. Down, down to hell, he said. And tell them I sent you there. That’s what he said.’

The words jangled somewhere in Shakespeare’s brain, as if he had somehow heard them before. But where could he have heard such a thing said?

‘Was there anything more? Did he say anything else?’

‘No, master. And nor did I wait around, for I knew I had to come to you straightway. I did not even wait for the constable or his men, I just picked myself off the ground, saw that Rowse was dead and ran from that place as fast as my foot would carry me. I took passage on the vessel that awaited me. The mariners dressed my wounds after a fashion.’

‘You look a great deal more presentable, thanks to Jane’s efforts.’

Boltfoot nodded. ‘Fortunately, we had a fair wind. Did I do wrong? Should I have searched Falmouth to find Sloth and the killers? I confess I have not thought clearly these past hours and days and I have worried greatly that I have failed you in everything I have done.’

Shakespeare put his arm around his servant. ‘You have failed me in nothing, Boltfoot. I suspect Mr Sloth did not wait in Falmouth. Indeed, I would not be surprised if he were not already here in London.’