The Heretics

Chapter 38

REGIS ROAG SAT at the front of the heavy draycart, whip in hand. His gaze seemed to be fixed straight ahead on the long dusty road, but he was watching constantly. He wore a cowl to conceal his face and ever-moving eyes, and to hide his fine head of hair. There was little chance of his being seen by anyone who could do him harm, but why take the risk?

The procession straggled for miles: horsemen and wagons as far as a man could see along the road south-west to the Palace of Nonsuch. Many of the wagons were the Queen’s own, carrying her immense wardrobe and furnishings. Many more belonged to the hundreds of nobles and others who made up the royal court. Yet more were those of the hangers-on. Wherever the wealthy gathered, they attracted traders, beggars, jugglers and minstrels, just as meat left out will swarm with flies.

Roag’s draycart was just one among many, trundling through the county of Surrey. It carried a striped pavilion tent and an array of playhouse costumes and props. His band of men either sat on the back or walked alongside the wagon. No one paid them any heed.

The journey here had been long and arduous, from a notion hatched in England, to the conspiratorial cloisters of southern Spain, and thence to the beaches of Cornwall. When Beatrice had entered his life, spouting her mad, half-formed ideas, he had not been slow to spot the potential.

‘With one stroke, we could destroy them all,’ she had said. ‘Ten minutes of blood in God’s name, and England will be saved.’

There was an elegant simplicity to her plan, but he had had to find the right men; he had had to find the right equipment. Her idea would not work without his exquisite attention to detail. Thanks to him, every obstacle had been bypassed or hurdled, every enemy removed. The recruitment of Ovid Sloth, with his terrifying debts and his contacts in England and Spain, had been the master stroke. It had been Sloth who had travelled to Toledo to commission the greatest of metalworkers to create the short, hard steel swords so neatly housed in their toy-like wooden frames.

All that was needed now was the extraction of a little information from a man named John Shakespeare and the way would be clear. Shakespeare was in good hands. The best of hands.

In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti . . .

The priest at the high altar intoned the words as he made the sign of the cross. He wore the long white gown known as an alb. Over this he wore a purple stole and then the chasuble, a sleeveless mantle.

John Shakespeare sat bound to the chair, unable to move more than his head. He closed his eyes and mouthed the Lord’s Prayer, something he had not done for some time.

He could sense Beatrice Eastley behind him, and could smell the smoke of her burning tobacco. The dog’s baleful eyes never left him.

Even before the priest turned, Shakespeare knew that it was Ovid Sloth. Englishman, Spaniard, merchant, traitor, priest: a man of many parts. He waddled slowly down the nave and stopped in front of the chair, gazing coldly at the captive.

‘How do you know of Regis Roag?’

‘He is the son of a king. How should I not know someone of such stature?’

‘We are not here to make jest. Tell me how you know him. You mentioned such a man at St Michael’s Mount, and then you knew him when you saw him. What do you know? How, too, did your man Cooper know where I would be this day?’

‘Cooper? What do you know of Cooper?’

‘What does he know of me? How did he find me?’

‘We know everything about you. We all know of Roag, too, everyone who works for Sir Robert Cecil. Everyone in the office of the Earl of Essex. We knew he was coming to Cornwall. Do you think we would let such an enemy of the state enter the country unnoted?’

Since he had awoken in this malign place, Shakespeare had been thinking a great deal about the nature of Roag’s entry into England. He was certain now that he had not come alone, that he had brought a band of mercenaries.

‘We know exactly what he is about and whom he brought to England. We have spies aplenty in Seville and Sanlúcar.’

‘Ah, yes, Robert Warner. A fine boy, by all accounts. Such a waste.’

‘Warner? What are you saying?’

‘Oh, I’m sure you know him. Knew him.’

‘God damn you, Sloth. God damn you all. We know all about you. You will never walk free in England again.’

Sloth recoiled.

‘He lies!’ Beatrice’s voice was a screech that echoed around the high vaulting walls of the old church.

‘But he does know Roag. And that concerns me. How does he know him? How did Cooper find me?’

‘It makes no difference. Regis can be anyone. You have seen him. He can transform himself. You know he can.’

Sloth ground his teeth so that the folds of his face quivered. ‘Regis insists we must find out how this man knows his name. Well, we shall discover the truth. Satan cannot withstand the power of God.’ He touched the corner of his purple stole to Shakespeare’s bleeding shoulder. ‘I do not like this man. I did not like him in Cornwall and I do not like him here. He is Satan’s creature. He has serpents and clawed minions of the beast in his belly. They must be exorcised. Just as the devil inside the body of England must be cast down into fiery damnation. What are the signs, sister?’

‘The chill air. He has no hunger. I see movement beneath the skin. Lesser demons have already flown. It is certain.’

Shakespeare struggled against the ropes. ‘This is not about God. This is about temporal power. You are no man of God, Sloth – and you, Beatrice Eastley, are nothing but an assassin. You killed the old nun, Sister Michael. I had thought she was one of you. Did she not approve of your vile designs? Did you fear she would betray you?’

Sloth, who was clutching a crucifix, made the sign of the cross on his own breast, then on the breast, brow and lips of Shakespeare, who violently averted his face from the perverse ritual.

‘Oremus oratio . . .’

Was this the way it had started for Loake and Trott and Friday? Did this woman and this man really believe in this gibberish, or was it some twisted entertainment, the way a child pulls off the wings of a fly, one by one?

‘Deus cui proprium est misereri semper et parcere: suscipe deprecationem nostram . . . God who is ever merciful and forgiving, accept our prayer that this your servant, bound by the bonds of sin, may be granted pardon by your loving kindness.’

And so it went on. Verse after verse of the Latin rite of exorcism. Sloth called on God to crush the serpent, to cast him back down to hell where he belonged, having once fallen. He commanded Satan to be gone, to depart in fear with all his demons and servants, all this interspersed with flinging of holy water and signs of the cross.

All the while Beatrice watched Shakespeare intently, examining his torso and throat for signs of unholy creatures crawling within. Every so often, as if to keep him awake, she stabbed him with the needle in a different part of his body, whenever she believed she saw a clawed demon crawling beneath the skin. Even as he shuddered under the desperate and never-ending onslaught, Shakespeare could not help but think of the fishers in the fens, stabbing at the black water with their glaives in the hope of an eel. Like them, she was fishing . . .

As time wore on, Beatrice became more and more frantic and began foaming at the mouth. She made a guttural sound from her throat, her voice a growl, lower than a dog’s, more disturbing than a wild beast’s roar.

Suddenly a small cat appeared at the end of the nave, just inside the church door. Beatrice screamed, ‘There it is! That is his kitling. Kill it, Sloth. Kill it!’

Looking about her, she saw a pile of wood lying close to the church wall. She picked up a long, crooked stick and began chasing the animal. Cornered, it bared its fangs and hissed at her. She lashed out at it, but the cat was too quick and dived for cover behind the lectern. The mastiff strained at its leash and barked.

‘You see,’ Shakespeare said to Sloth, ‘she is insane. She is leading you all down to hell with this madness. Set me free and make your escape while there is still time. Make your way to Spain in safety.’

Sloth took a small box from beneath the folds of his gowns. He opened the lid and took out something brown and leathery. ‘Light the brimstone, sister.’

Above them, the trapped jay flew about in panic, a flash of brilliance as it drove onwards from rafter to rafter, looking for its way out. Finally, as if summoning all its might, it flew for the light and collided with the ancient stained glass at speed. The impact must have stunned it, or broken its neck. It fell, spiralling black and grey and white, to the flagstone floor of the church and did not move.

Beatrice was on her knees stabbing at the cat, which was well concealed in the space beneath the lectern. Sloth’s words broke her frenzy. She turned, still on hands and knees. Rising to her feet, she lit a taper from the altar candle and held it to one of the dishes on the table. After a while there was a sizzle and a burst of acrid smoke. Beatrice handed the dish to Sloth. He made the sign of the cross over it, then held it beneath Shakespeare’s nose. Much as he wished to show no emotion, no physical distress or weakness to these people, the pungent fumes made him gag and choke. He gasped and coughed, using all his energy trying not to vomit.

‘It is a demon in his throat, suffocating.’ Ovid Sloth thrust forward the leathery brown object that he had taken from his box, pushing it into Shakespeare’s mouth. Shakespeare gasped with shock. ‘Oh, see how Father Sherwin’s bone burns the beast. Oh, surely this relic is God’s most potent weapon.’

Sherwin? Shakespeare recalled the name from many years ago. There had been a priest named Ralph Sherwin who died, butchered, on the scaffold along with Edmund Campion. Shakespeare could hold back no longer. He was sick, weakening fast, and knew he could not take much more before the blood loss made him slip into unconsciousness and death.

Beatrice thrust the sailmaker needle into Shakespeare’s left leg. This time the surprise made him cry out.

‘It is the devil that screams,’ she shrieked. ‘I hear the devil! He cannot last long. Baptise him, Mr Sloth, baptise the sinner, for that will burn the devil most wonderfully.’

Taking a pinch of salt from another dish, Sloth put it on to Shakespeare’s tight-clenched lips and rubbed it in, as though coating a piece of meat. He wet his own fingers with the obscene dribble of his own mouth and smeared it on to his captive’s eyes and lips. Then, from a little vial, he poured oil on Shakespeare’s mouth and nose.

‘Vade retro satana,’ he intoned. ‘Vade retro satana. Begone, Satan. Return whence you came!’ He held Shakespeare’s head between his soft, grub-like hands and twisted it so that he spoke directly into his ear. ‘Now tell me, John Shakespeare. Your life is ebbing. Tell me how you know of Roag. Do this and your family will live, though you die.’

The needle went in again, this time deep into his right thigh. Blood spat out on to the long white gown that Sloth wore beneath the chasuble and purple stole. Shakespeare did not even recoil this time. His body was growing colder, his life seeping from him like water through a colander. The surface of his body was now cloaked in blood. He had lost count of the times he had been stabbed. Soon, he knew, the mortal stroke would come: the needle through the jugular – if he survived that long.

Look after the little ones, O Lord.

He knew he could rely on Jane and Boltfoot, Ursula and Andrew, but he prayed that Sir Robert Cecil would watch over them, too. He closed his eyes. A vision came to him of his late wife, Catherine. Her dark waves of hair were tinged with a golden aureole, her eyes warm and serious, beckoning him, soothing him. The vision brought peace and acceptance, but faded like a sand picture under the incoming tide, only to be replaced by the carnal eyes of Lucia Trevail, beseeching him to live and join her in pleasure. But when he opened his eyes again they met the merciless gaze of Ovid Sloth and Beatrice Eastley, both staring at him with cold, deadly passion. They had no power over him.

Please God, he would be with Catherine soon.