Holy Spy (4 page)

‘Well? What is
your
version, reverend sir?’

‘He said he was a poor sinner and commended his soul to God, desiring that he might be forgiven his transgressions, a thing I consider highly unlikely given the monstrous nature of his crime.’

‘Is that all?’

‘By no means.’ The vicar raised his voice and indicated to the assembled onlookers, who roared and brandished fists. ‘As these good folk will all testify, he said he wished to go to his death with no lie on his lips and so he repeated the assertions made in court, that he was a hired killer, and that he had been offered a hundred pounds for the murder. Mr Cane was a wicked, wretched man, but at least in his final moments on earth he named the confederate in the heinous crime. Her turn here will come soon enough.’

‘Whom did he name?’

‘Why, the widow, Katherine Giltspur.’

At the name the crowd howled their loathing. This was a crime that struck at the very heart of all they understood and held dear: a wife murdering a husband. This was a knife to the sanctity of the family and the hearth, God-given things not to be besmirched.

‘You see, sir,’ the cleric continued. ‘The whole of London knows her to be a black-hearted whore, lower than the snakes of the field, more cruel than the scavenger birds of the air. There can be no more unnatural crime before God or man than the killing of a husband by the woman pledged to give him succour.’

Shakespeare looked down at the baying crowd. Half had their eyes fixed on the hanged felon and the other half were watching him, wondering, perhaps, which way to turn their ire. He cursed; a dying man’s confession was sacrosanct. No one would doubt it. Innocent or guilty, Kat’s cause was hopeless.

He strode over to the hanged man and pulled the hood from his head. A pair of bulging, lifeless eyes stared back at him from a blue, bulbous face incongruous above the thin, hemp-encircled neck. He was a man of about forty years of age, dark-haired with a reddish beard. His face was engorged and yet scrawny, as though he had not eaten in a week. His tongue lolled, red and encrusted. Ugly streams of blood dripped from his nostrils and the corners of his grimacing mouth. Shakespeare doubted that he could have weighed a hundredweight. He was a poor specimen. The world would be none the worse for his passing.

Shakespeare turned back to the cleric. ‘Did he say anything else? Did you see him at Newgate before he came here?’

‘No. There was nothing else.’

‘Then say your prayers for his soul.’
And I will pray for Kat’s
.

‘No, sir. I will not pray for his soul. I will pray for his eternal damnation, in the fire of pain, for ever, with the she-devil who paid him.’

In the morning, Shakespeare came down from his chamber and discovered a woman with a broom sweeping up the rushes in the parlour. She bowed to him nervously. It was not the maid he had told Boltfoot to hire, but the other, younger woman. He frowned at her, and she scurried away.

‘Boltfoot!’

His assistant limped in from the kitchen, dragging his club foot. ‘Master?’

‘That woman is not Mistress Rymple.’

‘No, master. It is the other one, Jane Cawston.’

‘And yet I told you to hire the Rymple woman and send Miss Cawston on her way with a shilling.’

‘As I recall, Mr Shakespeare, you told me to hire Mistress Rymple if she could start without delay. When I asked her, she told me she would need a week, which I considered to be a delay.’

‘And so you told her the job was not hers? You took this decision on yourself?’

Boltfoot did not look at all unnerved. ‘What was I to do? You were engaged with the lawyer Mr Tort, master. I thought you would not thank me to disturb you with such a trivial matter. And then you raced out as though pursued by the hounds of hell . . .’

Shakespeare wondered for a few moments whether to sack Boltfoot. At the very least he had to be severely rebuked. ‘You have done this deliberately, flouting my authority. You knew very well I wanted the older one. She would know what was required of her and would need no instruction in organising this household.’

‘You are right, master. And yet it did seem to me Miss Cawston had great merits too.’

‘Merits? You mean she was prettier and younger.’

‘But, master, whereas the older one would do things
her
way, I believe that Miss Cawston will learn to do things
our
way. Forgive me if I have erred, sir.’

‘You have indeed erred! This is flagrant disobedience. My order was clear . . .’

‘Then I offer my heartfelt apologies, master. But I would say that Miss Cawston will work until Lady’s Day for two pounds all found, whereas Annis Rymple had hopes of five pounds.’

Other men would take a birch rod to a servant who displayed such insubordination, and yet Shakespeare found himself scarcely able to stifle a laugh. He dared not let Boltfoot see the smile playing treacherously around his lips, so he turned his back. ‘Send Miss Cawston to me,’ he ordered. ‘I suppose I had better welcome her to our household.’

Jane Cawston stood before him nervously clutching the handle

of her broom.

‘Tell me once more about yourself, Miss Cawston.’

‘As I said yesterday, sir, I am the eldest of twelve girls. My family lives in the north of Essex near the town of Sudbury. My father is in service to a yeoman farmer.’

‘And what has made you seek work in London?’

‘My sisters are all growing. They need the space – and one less mouth to feed. Nor is it easy for my father without any sons. My wages will help, too, master.’

He guessed her age at about eighteen or nineteen. Her face was round and pretty, framed by soft auburn hair. She was strong enough and healthy and had a warmth and serenity that would add cheer to this house. Boltfoot had probably been right in his choice. She would learn quickly enough.

‘And you believe you can organise this household in the way we require? Floors cleaned, mattresses turned, food on the table, ale brewed, livestock in the yard, our clothes laundered by and by, the front step swept, lanterns lit at dusk, management of the housekeeping allowance?’

‘Yes, master.’

‘And you will be expected to take messages if Mr Cooper and I are not here.’

She nodded hurriedly, like a hen pecking.

He thought she seemed a little uncertain. ‘Miss Cawston? If you are going to live here with two men, you must be able to do these things. And if you have troubles, you must bring your concerns to us.’

‘That is it, sir. Two men. I had expected to find a family with women and girls. I am not used to the ways of menfolk. I have heard stories—’

Shakespeare smiled at her. ‘You have nothing to fear, I promise you. There will not be any beatings in this house, or any other unchristian behaviour. That is my word. Now, what are we to call you?’

‘Jane, if it please you, master. I like to be called plain Jane.’

‘Well, Jane. Perhaps you would make me eggs – two eggs – boiled until hard, with some manchet bread and butter. And some milk, if we have any. I have an important day ahead of me.’

Chapter 5

In all the eight years that Shakespeare had worked for Sir Francis Walsingham, he had never experienced a meeting such as this. Usually, the Principal Secretary kept his briefings small and intimate with no more than two or three present across a table: the fewer privy to a secret, the less the seepage. But today five men were here in this airless little room at the rear of Walsingham’s Seething Lane mansion.

Outside the window, the clouds were as dark as gunpowder. Inside, the atmosphere was brittle. They talked in snatches, watching each other furtively, restive and suspicious.

At last the door opened. Walsingham entered. At his side was a tall man whom Shakespeare recognised as Sir Robert Huckerbee from the Lord Treasurer’s office. The room fell silent. The Principal Secretary’s face was sombre and gaunt, as always, but his dark eyes were alert, skipping from John Scudamore to Arthur Gregory and Frank Mills, then to Nicholas Henbird. Finally they came to rest on John Shakespeare, and lingered.

Each of these men had his own role in Walsingham’s extensive spy network. Each had his own special skill. Each was trusted as much as he trusted any man.

‘Gentlemen,’ Walsingham said in his grave, insistent voice. ‘Be seated.’

There was a scraping of wood on stone. The noise jarred. When all was quiet again Walsingham tapped the table with the hilt of his quill-knife.

‘I think you all know Sir Robert Huckerbee. He is here to ensure financial rigour and to report directly on our operations to Lord Burghley. Without his purse, none of what we do would be possible.’

Huckerbee bowed in acknowledgement. Whereas Mr Secretary was dark-browed and zealous, Huckerbee had the light patrician air of one born to a life of public service with great rewards expected in return. He had served Lord Treasurer Burghley as comptroller for many years and was renowned for his loyalty and diligence.

‘Now,’ Walsingham continued. ‘I have called this rare meeting because the time has come. Listen with care, for if you do not know the whole truth, you will trip over each other. If we do not work as one, then our efforts are doomed to failure.’

He paused. The room was silent.

‘We have one aim: to save this realm and our beloved sovereign from forces that would destroy us. To do that, we must have the head of the Queen of Scots. She has plotted against us too long.’

He had spoken the thing that all men knew but refrained from saying. This was Walsingham’s ambition: the death of Mary Stuart.

The Principal Secretary paused to allow the enormity of the mission to sink in, then resumed his address. ‘Every man here must know that the Scots devil has conspired ceaselessly to snatch the throne of England. She would murder our Queen
– her own cousin – to achieve her aim. This is fact; there can be no argument.’

Shakespeare felt Walsingham’s eyes alighting on him once more.

‘John, do you believe this?’

The sweat dripped at Shakespeare’s neck. Yes, he knew it well enough. Mary’s conspiracies had plagued the country these past decades. Any one of these plots could have cost the Scots Queen her head, deservedly. She had tried to murder Elizabeth Tudor and would do so again given the chance.

And so he nodded. ‘Yes, Mr Secretary, I believe this to be true.’

‘Then we may proceed. For over a year now, I have been striving to gather the proof that will do for this Scots devil once and for all. Unlike other countries, unlike this Queen of Scots herself, we do not murder our enemies in their beds or in dark alleys, but bring them to trial and punish them when their guilt is proven. And so it will be with her.

‘We must do this because only her death will end her plotting. Only her death will protect us. Were she monarch, she would have every man in this room hanged, and she would bring back the Inquisition first introduced here by that other Mary – Mary Tudor – with its burnings and horror. So we must find evidence strong enough to bring the Queen of Scots to justice – evidence that will convince Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth of her cousin’s guilt. Evidence that will satisfy every royal court in the known world.’

Four men murmured their assent. Only Shakespeare was silent. Yes, he believed the Scots Queen guilty. And yet . . . and yet he wavered. There was a difference between catching a felon after a crime has been committed and using artifice to provoke a man or woman to commit such a felony. The word was
entrapment
. Could it ever be justified?

Walsingham continued. ‘Everything we do in the coming days has but one objective: to bring down Mary Stuart. All other matters are to be subsumed to this one end: the Scots devil’s head on the block. Nothing less. There are other guilty players who will also lose their heads, but none of them must
take precedence over her.’

Again, the murmuring. The assent.

‘Good. Then all is understood. And so, gentlemen, I can now reveal to you that we have a way to secure the proof we need. Mr Thomas Phelippes is this very day at Chartley, organising what may soon lead to the final act of this tragical tale.’