Chapter 31

PENELOPE RICH WAS AT HER ABLUTIONS IN HER PRIVATE chamber. She stood naked in front of a copper bowl that rested on a small table, attended by two maids.

As Shakespeare entered the room, the maids were rubbing her arms and legs with a cloth and a soap ball. Her breasts were still well formed despite the birth of six children, and she made no attempt to cover them. She looked up, unashamed. “Come in, Mr. Shakespeare, come in.”

Though the day was hot, a fire of ash wood and sweet-smelling herbs roared in the hearth. “The herbs are to keep the pestilence at bay, Mr. Shakespeare. Dr. Forman tells me I must burn rosemary, bay, and juniper. He gives me much more advice, besides, some of which is not so pleasant. I do not mind sniffing and sucking oranges and lemons to ward off the evil contagion, but I cannot abide the flavor of wormwood in wine vinegar, nor the chewing of garlic and gentian root. In truth, I would rather die than partake of such things.”

Shakespeare stood awkwardly a few feet inside the door. He had never seen anything quite like this room. Her bedchamber was completely draped in black and gold. Even the bedding was black, as were the cypress-guarded curtains that hung from the four carved oak posts around it.

“Water,” she shouted suddenly. A footman came scuttling in with a bowl of clean water, which he exchanged for the bowl of dirty, soapy water. Penelope’s maids immediately proceeded to rinse the soap from her body, splashing water all over the wood floor, then dabbing at her with a large dry sheet of linen. She was, thought Shakespeare, a magnificent specimen of womanhood.

“Bring me a gown.”

One of the maids hastened through an inner doorway and returned immediately with a long linen jacket, embroidered in silver and black, which she held out to her lady. Penelope slipped it on and tied it loosely at the front, so that the soft mounds of her breasts were still visible.

One of the maids began to comb her lady’s fair hair, while the other set to painting her face with powders and brushes. Penelope stood regally between them, accepting their ministrations.

“Now, then, Mr. Shakespeare, my brother has asked me to knock some sense into your head. He would have you as his chief intelligencer, but he is told by Mr. McGunn that you are fluttering about like a silly girl who cannot decide whether to allow a handsome knight to deflower her.”

Shakespeare was sweating, both from the heat of the fire and from a deep feeling of unease. “My lady, I am greatly honored by your brother’s offer.”

“Then, may I tell him you are agreed?”

Shakespeare hesitated. “I had thought,” he said, meeting her piercing gaze, “that my lord of Essex employed Mr. Anthony Bacon in that position.”

“Indeed, he does work for my brother, and you would be required to cooperate fully with him. But your roles will be very different. Mr. Bacon has spent many years on the Continent, where he has built up an unparalleled group of contacts. But he does not have your experience in the day-to-day running of an intelligence-gathering network here on home soil. The Spanish will try to come at us again, Mr. Shakespeare—both at sea and secretly, with dag and blade. So we must strike out and destroy them first. No one knows the ways of these Spanish intrigants better than you. You have smelled them out before; find their stink for us again.”

“My lady, you overstate my worth.”

“Mr. Shakespeare, I believe I know you better than you know yourself. There are those who would sue for peace. Men who would lick the Spanish king’s boots. I know you are not of that ilk, for you were of a mind with Mr. Secretary.”

“Those days are gone.”

“We need men such as you. We have heard much about you and we all admire you greatly. My brother gathers together the best minds in the land to carry on the work of the late Mr. Secretary and wishes you to be part of it. One day he will be Principal Secretary, and those loyal to him will be ministers of the crown. In the meantime, the Spaniard beats at our door, Mr. Shakespeare. He plots to snatch our throne and rule us as once he did with Bloody Mary. He would impose his vile Inquisition on us and burn us all as heretics. Is that not worth fighting against?”

“Of course, my lady.”

She waved her maids away and they scuttled from the room like mice discovered in the cheese cratch.

“Mr. Shakespeare,” she said once the maids had shut the door, “there are those governing this country who feign friendship toward my brother, all the while twisting the knife into his back. They pretend strength against the Spanish, all the while treating with Parma for peace. They speak out for England, all the while offering the crown to James of Scotland. You are no fool; you know of whom I speak.”

She was talking of Sir Robert Cecil and his father, Lord Burghley. Shakespeare inclined his head. He was not about to acknowledge that he understood the gist of what she said.

Penelope sighed, a long weary sigh such as a mother might produce when her little boy fails once again to do his chores. Her voice softened. “Mr. Shakespeare, you are an exceeding handsome man.” She took his right hand in both of hers and held it to her breast, his fingers within the lapel of her gown against her skin. “Do you feel my heart beat in here? Is this not a heart of England, beating for England?”

As once before in the garden of this stately house, he caught the heady whiff of her scent. She tilted her head up until their lips were but an inch apart. She seemed to hover there before him, like a ripe red plum ready to be plucked from the bough. Her black eyes never wavered from his own.

Her lips touched his and their mouths opened and kissed. His right hand stayed on her breast while his other arm encircled her and pulled her soft belly toward him. She moved her body forward at his bidding, with no resistance.

All the pent-up frustrations of these last days and weeks seemed ready to burst forth, but then she removed her lips from his mouth and held his face gently between her hands and smiled at him. “John Shakespeare,” she said softly, “there is time enough for this. But we have things to talk on.” She stood back.

His yard was hard in his breeches and all too obvious. She touched him there briefly with her perfectly manicured hand. “Well, sir, I see you are, indeed, a man of stout English oak. We must look after you well.”

“My lady—” he began.

“Say nothing. Listen to me, and listen well. Think on this: our beloved Queen is old and declining. She does not have long to live—and then what? She will not name a successor. Would you have a Spanish Infanta in her place, or James the son of Mary Queen of Scots as your sovereign? These are stark choices and imminent.”

“I did not believe the Queen so diminished.”

Penelope went to a console table beside one of the tall windows and, from a drawer, took out a rolled parchment. She handed it to Shakespeare.

He unfurled it slowly. As soon as it was laid out, he saw that it was an astrological chart.

“It is a chart, a life chart,” she said softly, looking at him all the while. “It displays the exact span of a life and reveals the star-divined moment of impending death. The date of this death is September the eighteenth, which is almost upon us.”

“Whose chart is this?” he asked, though he knew very well. At the top of the page he read the words: At what date will a certain person pass from this life.

“Whose do you think it is?”

“I would rather not say. I think the mere sighting of such a piece of work could lead to the scaffold.”

She laughed. “I had thought you a man of oak, hard and strong, Mr. Shakespeare.”

“But this is treasonable, my lady. This is like a razor in the hands of an infant that will surely cut. Do you not know how dangerous this is?”

“And now you have seen it, what will you do as a loyal Englishman and subject of the crown? Will you have my head chopped off?” Penelope Rich looked at him. “I know you understand the power of these things—that they are not to be treated lightly. That is why this chart is important. It is the wherewithal to save us all. It is telling us the date so that we know there is no time to lose. It is a gift from God, instructing us to act without delay to ensure the English succession. And to do so, we need every man of oak. This is your duty.”

Shakespeare could not take his gaze from the horoscope. She called it a gift from God, but he thought it more like a death warrant from the Devil.

She read his thoughts and shrugged her delicate shoulders. “I see this unnerves you.” Casually she tossed the parchment into the fragrant fire of herbs. The flames leaped up and devoured it. “There, it is gone.”

“It is better thus,” he said. But within his heart, he was cursing. He could have used that chart; it would have been the evidence Cecil sought and might have saved his brother.

“But we still know what it said. And that brings us back to you—for I now need to know your answer, John Shakespeare. Are you with us or are you against us? She is about to enter her sixtieth year. What few teeth she has are blackened stumps. Her face is held together by paint and her body is a trillibub that the slaughterman would not rate fit for pies. She cannot live long. Everyone knows that, the whole world. The chart but proves it. Would you have a strong English king or a stranger on the throne? Would you have a man who would fight the Spanish with every last drop of his blood, or be ruled by a Scotch toad and a craven cripple who would faint at a cut finger?”

“An English king?”

“My brother, Mr. Shakespeare.” She looked at him searchingly. One of her fine eyebrows lifted and the corners of her mouth turned up. “Are you really so shocked? Can you think of a finer monarch for this great realm?”

“Your brother is noble, but he is not of the blood royal.”

“Is he not? Do you not think Great Henry’s blood runs through our veins?” Penelope laughed and touched the front of his breeches again. “You seem quite deflated. Do not worry about my brother’s entitlement. All will become clear. Now decide: for us, or against us. There is no middle way.”

He went down on one knee and bowed his head low in obeisance. Then he raised his face, took her hand in his, and kissed it. “I am with you, my lady. I humbly accept the position you have so graciously offered me.”

She bent and took his face between her soft white hands again and kissed him, long and deep. He wanted very much to put his hands inside her long embroidered gown, to slip his fingers between her legs, to throw her on the great black-draped bed and take her with more urgency than he had ever known, but he could not do it. His mind was willing, so was his body—almost more than he could bear—yet his soul held him back, as sure as an iron fetter keeps a man chained to a wall.

Playfully she pushed him away. “You are a married man and I am a married woman, John Shakespeare. Do you wish to ruin me?”

He bowed his head.

“I jest. It is the forbidden spice that makes love so piquant. Devotion without lust is like wine without sugar. Come to me in Staffordshire. My mother and I go to Blithfield and Chartley on the morrow. You will find us there until autumn, idling the days away in the gardens. Come to me by night, John, and we will instruct each other in country matters. I will show you pleasures you have never dreamed of. For the present, you must follow my brother, who is gone to court. There is much to be done.”