The Heretics

Chapter 44

THE BED IN Shakespeare’s chamber was hot and damp with lust. Two bodies sprawled upon it, one tall and angular and adorned with bandages, the other slender and soft. Lucia Trevail turned over on to her front and exhaled deeply. Shakespeare sat up against the bedhead, catching his breath, all spent.

There was no tender dealing here. Their couplings were nothing but wanton greed and hunger. A brutal, desperate collision of bodies. There had been no time for small murmurings and fragrant kisses; they had merely pulled off each other’s clothes in a frenzied tearing of stays and seams.

She reached out her slender arm and touched the bandages that still decorated his chest and shoulders. Her hand was light and warm.

‘The wounds are healing well,’ he said by way of conversation. ‘I have my energy back.’

Food and plenty of water, along with herbal preparations from Dr Forman, had helped him recover more quickly than he might have dared hope.

‘So I see.’

He laughed. She had been showered with diamonds by the Queen and fêted by courtiers. All had expressed awe and wonder at her courage when dragged away at swordpoint by a murderous savage.

‘You know, Mr Shakespeare, you might have saved everyone a great deal of trouble and fear if you had allowed us ladies some intellect. Had you but entrusted us with information about your inquiries – your search for Mr Roag and Mr Sloth – we would have known straightway that there was something rotten about their plans to stage a masque for the Queen. But no, you would not have it, so how were we to know anything was amiss? None of you men will credit us with any wit.’

It seemed that her little group, her School of Day, as Lady Susan liked to call their intellectual gatherings, had been used most cynically by Ovid Sloth. And yet, at the end, it was this very same group that had proved the conspirators’ undoing.

In particular, it had been the good sense of Margaret, the Countess of Cumberland, that had been decisive. There had been something about Roag that had roused her suspicions when they met him rehearsing at his pavilion in the park of Nonsuch.

‘Instinct, sir,’ she had told Shakespeare later when he called on the group at the house in Barbican Street. ‘As a wild animal senses a hunter, I smelt it on him. He had the unholy stench of impending death. That, allied to the fear raised by the powerful military presence, alarmed me greatly.’

The intense feeling had stayed with the countess all day, but she had not acted on it. It was only as the evening drew on, and as fear gnawed at her, that she had confided in Emilia Lanier.

Emilia had known exactly what to do. She had gone straight to Lord Chamberlain Hunsdon and told him of the countess’s fears. By this time, Roag and his group were inside the palace, closeted in the tiring room where they were putting the finishing touches to their costumes, donning masks of gold and checking their weapons in readiness for their blood-drenched performance.

Hunsdon did not waste a moment. He called out the Queen’s Lifeguard. The confrontation between the guards and the would-be assassins had been a moment of high drama: enjoyed immensely by Her Majesty but less so by her chief ministers, Burghley and Cecil.

In the fray that followed, a young Lifeguard had suffered a cut to the ribs from the assault by Roag, but his life was not in danger. The only other blood shed was that of Regis Roag’s mercenaries. All had died on the stage. A hue and cry had immediately been set up for confederates and Winnow had been caught within the hour.

Shakespeare had asked Cecil in vain that he be spared the rack. ‘He will die horribly, Sir Robert. Is it necessary to have Topcliffe break him first?’

‘As squeamish as ever, John?’

‘I would not treat the lowest creature on God’s earth the way he treats his prisoners.’

‘And yet you were tortured by this unholy band. For that was what your so-called exorcism amounted to, did it not?’

Shakespeare nodded.

‘Fear not,’ Cecil continued. ‘Topcliffe might be out of gaol, but he is not back in favour. He will be consigned to his country estates where he can devote his energies to his peat and ironworks. Mr Winnow will face the rack, but it will not be Topcliffe who operates it.’

Shakespeare had his doubts. The thought of Topcliffe forgoing the pleasure of persecution was like a swift giving up the air: it would happen only at death.

Here in Shakespeare’s chamber, however, such dark thoughts were very distant. He stretched and yawned. Lucia Trevail nestled closer to him and began to stroke him once again.

He gasped. ‘You are a wanton, Lady Trevail.’

‘Thank you, Mr Shakespeare.’

Again, he wondered about her. You shoot at Spaniards and you stab a man to death with a dagger to the throat. Your skin is soft, but your heart is steel, mistress. What was he, John Shakespeare, to her?

‘Am I nothing but a scratching post on which to pleasure yourself as the need takes you?’ he asked her.

‘You are indeed a fine post. Wood, strong and hard.’

He thought back to Cornwall. The way he had gone to Trevail House to spy her out. He thought of confessing the suspicions he still held, but decided against it. Never reveal more than you need, John. That had been one of Sir Francis Walsingham’s first strictures.

Instead his hand went between her thighs and he pulled her to him once more.

In the evening, when Shakespeare woke, she was gone. There was no note. He smiled to himself. She was an uncommon woman.

With the sun slanting in from the west through the leaded pane, he rose from the bed, dressed at a leisurely pace and wandered downstairs. He longed for his family to come home from the Cecil mansion; yet the outcome of the conspiracy left many questions unanswered and he could not risk the girls’ lives until all was settled.

The warning had been clear enough: little Grace and Mary would die if Shakespeare did not cease his inquiries. Who remained out there to exact revenge?

One question above all still troubled him: why had they killed the old nun, Sister Michael? He had put the matter to Dick Winnow in Newgate.

‘We found her body at the same time as you did, Mr Shakespeare.’

‘We?’

‘Roag, Paget, Ratbane and me. The body was there, warm and newly dead. Stabbed through the heart. Roag did not seem surprised; he merely laughed.’

‘Did Beatrice do this?’

‘Possibly. She was mad enough.’

And then there was the matter of Paul Hooft. Shakespeare wished to know more about his movements, but that could wait.

He drew a cup of ale from the keg in the kitchen and sipped it, then spat it out. It was stale and foul. It was time for Jane to come home and organise them all; brew some fresh ale and beer, and fetch good food from the market. He was longing to hear the chatter of Grace, Mary and Ursula, and once again turn this house back into a family home.

There was a knock at the door. He opened it, hoping to find Lucia again, but a young woman stood before him. She looked vaguely familiar.

‘Yes?’

‘I want to talk to you, Mr Shakespeare.’

‘I know you, don’t I?’ he said, searching his memory.

‘You should know every inch of me,’ she said and gave him a look of brazen amusement.

Her audacious look brought back his memory. She had been Dr Forman’s bedmate when he had called at the house in Fylpot Street before travelling to Cornwall.

‘It’s Janey, isn’t it? May I ask what this is about?’

At Forman’s house he had thought her rather plain, though full of sensual promise. Now, fully clothed and with her hair untangled and combed back from her face, he found her quite striking. As he looked at her, his eye was suddenly caught by a small mark above her right eyebrow. It was faint, but he would swear it was shaped like a new moon – a crescent moon.

Her hand went to the mark and she nodded. ‘You know about that, I take it.’

Oh yes, he knew about the crescent moon.

He nodded. ‘Yes, yes I do.’

‘Then you must know that my name is not Janey, but Thomasyn.’ She met his gaze, looking for his reaction. ‘Thomasyn Jade. I believe you have been looking for me.’

Shakespeare smiled. ‘I am very glad to make your acquaintance, mistress. I doubt you know how glad, for it enables me to fulfil a promise I made to a good man.’

‘That fool Southwell—’

‘Why do you call him a fool?’

‘For getting himself killed for a childish superstition, that is why.’

‘Perhaps he was misguided, but he was a good man for all that. And he wished well of you. Now, if you would care to repair to the Swan with me, I have a thirst that must be quenched and a hunger that must be satisfied. Step inside while I fetch my purse.’

The tavern was crowded with drinkers, but they pushed past some drunks and found a corner for themselves in a tiny partitioned booth.

‘This place is so small it’s like being locked away in a cupboard,’ Thomasyn complained. ‘And no one knows better than I what a cupboard is like, for they kept me prisoner for months, moved me from house to house, locked me in cupboards and cellars. Every day from dawn to dusk and beyond, they kept me tied to chairs and assailed me with their wicked rituals until I did come to believe I had demons within me.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘Buy me a gage of Mad Dog, Mr Shakespeare, for I have a desire to get as cup-shotten as a constable this evening.’

Summoning the potboy, he ordered a quart of spiced beer for Thomasyn and a flagon of Gascon wine for himself, as well as a trencher of cold beef pie, eggs and salad, for he had a mighty hunger.

‘I trust you will excuse my ill manners in eating while you merely drink, mistress?’

‘Fill your belly, Mr Shakespeare.’

‘You have a story to tell, I think.’

She nodded. ‘I do, if you wish to listen. But first I have an apology to make. You see, I have known for quite some time that you have been looking for me and I have done my best not to be found. I was worried that you had come to spy me out, so I tried to frighten you off.’

The potboy arrived with their beer and wine. Shakespeare watched her as she supped a deep draught of beer and waited for her to continue.

‘It was me that left that note with the girl you keep, Ursula.’

Shakespeare frowned. ‘What are you saying?’

‘I wrote that letter that threatened you. I never meant it. I wouldn’t harm a rat. Well, I would harm a rat, of course, but not a little girl . . .’

‘You did that?’

‘Yes.’ She said the word very quietly.

Slowly, as the enormity of her words dawned, anger welled up within him.

‘So that was you all along, the vile letter? We have all been scared out of mind for nothing?’

She nodded again and looked down into her beer.

‘You even put their names, Grace and Mary, and all in the shape of a cross. In blood!’

‘It was unforgivable.’

‘But why?’

‘Because I was scared myself. I thought you had sent your servant Jane Cooper to Simon’s house to spy me out. I couldn’t let you find me and I didn’t want to run again.’

‘But you threatened my children! In God’s name, you sit here and drink beer with me, and tell me you sent a letter in blood threatening that my young girls would be harmed or even killed! Why would you do such a thing?’

She put a hand to her forehead and clenched it. Then she shook herself, took another sip of beer and placed her hands flat on the ale-sticky oak table. Taking a deep breath, she looked around as though they might be watched or overheard.

‘Whatever it is, you will tell me.’

‘Yes, I will. I say just this in my defence. I have known such fear and horror that I cannot bear to even think on it. I know you have done many brave things, Mr Shakespeare, but they were manly feats of arms. I know, too, from Simon Forman that you suffered one night at their wicked hands. But what I endured was the destruction of my soul, piece by piece over many months.’

‘The exorcisms?’

‘I thought you were sent by them to bring me back. I thought this time they would finish what was started and kill me.’

‘But, Mistress Jade, your tormentors were all captured. Many were executed. Father Weston languishes in Wisbech Castle. Why would you think he could harm you from there? Indeed, why did you ever run from the safe harbour you had found in the home of Lady Susan, the Countess of Kent?’

‘Because I saw her and knew I was in danger.’

Shakespeare’s food arrived and he pushed it away irritably. ‘Whom did you see? The old nun, Sister Michael?’

‘Oh no, Mr Shakespeare, you do not understand at all. Sister Michael was my one friend in the world. She persuaded Father Southwell to intervene and put an end to the exorcisms. It was she who took me to safety in London and found me refuge. I could not have survived without her. Why do you think she hid away at Denham? Why do you think they killed her in your stables, Mr Shakespeare? Because they knew what she had done and she refused to tell them where I was. They wanted to get me because I was the only one that knew the truth. Poor Sister Michael was not the one I saw. The one I was fleeing was the one who ran it all, the one who was always there, urging them on, doing filthy things to me, stabbing me with needles, sticking bones and other disgusting things into me, forcing my legs apart and squirting strange liquids into me. And as soon as I saw her at Lady Susan’s house, I ran.’

All Shakespeare’s appetite had dissipated. He drank a goblet in one swallow. The horror unfolding was too much to hear.

‘You know her name, Mr Shakespeare, for I saw her leaving your house this very day. I know all about her and her evil desires. The one I am still not sure of is you.’