Chapter 39
IT WAS OVER. THERE WOULD BE NO PITCHED BATTLE between men-at-arms and common men, no civil war on a muddy field in Derbyshire beneath lead-gray skies. Where Essex saw only a mist of blood, his elder sister saw things with sun-bright clarity. She knew that Bess would say nothing of this and nor would John Shakespeare. She understood the workings of their minds. She left the church with her head held high. With fortune, there would be another day for the Devereux clan. She would consult Dr. Forman.
On the porch, John Shakespeare stood face-to-face with Essex. “My lord, you will disband and hasten from this place, for if you do not, I vow that a royal militia will be raised against you that will hunt you and your band down to all your deaths.”
Essex ignored him. He looked down at the flail where it lay in the mud, its round head covered in the thick, coagulating blood of Sir Toby Le Neve. He seemed to study it, as if he would find some answers there, in its unforgiving iron. He shook his head slightly, perhaps suddenly realizing what he had done. “Toby …”
Shakespeare gazed on the strange, poignant tableau with a mixture of feelings. Le Neve had saved his life, had deliberately put himself in harm’s way and had taken the lethal blow intended for his foe. It was a difficult thing to comprehend, that a man guilty of such a heinous crime should sacrifice his own life for a near stranger; perhaps there was a conscience in that heart, a need to find redemption. “He died in honor, my lord. Take him and bury him with military honors.”
If Essex had words, he did not utter them. He looked at Shakespeare for a moment without expression, then strode away, across the face of Bess’s army, followed in dribs and drabs by his supporters. Four of them lifted up the body of Sir Toby Le Neve and bore him on their shoulders; they would take him away from here and bury him in their own way.
Their horses were tethered in the trees at the edge of the churchyard. Essex threw himself into the saddle of his black charger and kicked it into motion with unnecessary ferocity, galloping off southward in the direction of Hardwick Hall, his disorganized contingent trailing in his wake.
Shakespeare watched them go until only Lady Rich was left.
“What will you do now, Mr. Shakespeare?”
“That is not for me to decide.”
“The Cecil crookback has snared you.”
Shakespeare was silent.
“But you can do nothing, can you? You cannot touch us without condemning your own brother. And I know you, Mr. Shakespeare—I know that you would never do that. Nor can Bess say a thing. If one word of this ever reached the Queen’s ears, she would bar Arbella from the succession—writ in law—and would likely demand her head.” Penelope touched his arm with something akin to affection. “You have been grievously in error this day, sir. You have handed the throne of England to a malodorous Scotch garboil—or perchance a simpering Spaniard. You have seen the chart. The Queen will die within days and the Cecils will arrange everything to their own gain and England’s loss.”
Shakespeare said nothing. The matter of the succession was not his to decide; nor was the fate of Essex and his sister and the rest. His task was the defense of the realm and the life of the monarch.
Penelope laughed lightly. “McGunn was right to distrust you. Your silence tells me everything. You have sold your soul.”
Shakespeare still said nothing. Essex and Lady Rich had thought to play him like a fish, knowing that if he did not swim with them he would end up fried on their platter.
“Well, Mr. Shakespeare, it seems you have chosen your path. And it is a path of burning coals. You have made powerful enemies this day. My mother has the towering rage of the Tudors, and she will want your blood. Do you think your choice will have been worth it? Does the crookback pay you well?”
At last he spoke, his voice clipped and expressionless. “I have been loyal to my sovereign.”
Penelope laughed. “Today’s sovereign. What of tomorrow’s? What will become of you when the sovereign dies and the crookback’s star wanes and falls?”
“As you say, my lady, I have chosen my path. I will live with it.”
“Or die …”
Shakespeare began to walk away, behind Bess’s great artisan army, now proceeding at a steady pace toward Hardwick Hall. Bess was with them, marching her deflated granddaughter home.
Penelope took the reins of her horse and rose into the saddle. She trotted up toward Shakespeare. “Wait,” she said, her voice softening.
He stopped. His head had survived the glancing blow of the flail but his neck was still mighty sore from Slyguff’s rope. “My lady?”
“There was something between us, was there not? For a while, for a moment, I did wish … Our timing was crossed.”
He shrugged. “Perhaps. But I am a married man, and you are wed to your brother’s cause.”
“Take care, Mr. Shakespeare. I wish you no ill.”
She turned her horse and, without another look back, spurred on and rode south.
IN THE LIBRARY OF Hardwick Hall, Bess scolded her granddaughter as though she were a kitchen maid. The girl sat on a plain three-legged stool, her wedding dress askew and muddy from the mile-long walk back to the hall. She alternately sulked and sobbed, but did not utter a word.
Shakespeare looked on as Bess paced the room, cuffing the girl’s head or boxing her ears with hard blows each time she passed her. Arbella let out a cry of pain each time she was hit, for Bess struck her with venom.
“You behave like a common drudge, so you will be treated like one. From this day forward, you will stay indoors unless accompanied by me. You will sleep in my room by night. You have no idea what you have done. Everything I planned for you might now be brought to ruin by your foolishness. Did you not once ask yourself why the Earl of Essex should wish to marry you? Did you really think you had the womanly charms to lure a man from his wife? You knew he was married—and, more important, you knew that a woman of the blood royal could never wed without her sovereign’s consent. You might still end your days in the Tower for what you have done this day. Have you learned nothing from the fate of your cousins Jane Grey and Mary Stuart? Are you grown so tall that you would wish to be a head shorter?”
She hit her again. Arbella cried out but said not a word.
“Now go. Get out of my sight. Your meals will be brought to you in the classroom every day for the next month. You will not venture out.”
Bess clapped her hands and a governess in Puritan black appeared. “Take her to the classroom, Mistress Beacon. Keep her at her studies until dusk. Then begin again at dawn, without respite.”
When her granddaughter had gone, Bess at last sat down. She sighed heavily and shook her head. “Come, Mr. Shakespeare, let us drink some sweet wine and talk a little and see how we may all survive this.”
“First I would speak with the tutor, Morley. Would you allow that?”
“Very well, but I pledge that he will not be a tutor here by this day’s end.”
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY was not about to be cowed by Bess of Hardwick or John Shakespeare. He felt sure of the power he wielded. He stood in the center of the room, seeming to take more interest in the cut of his ink-stained fingernails than in the other people present.
“Do not think for a moment that Essex will protect you, even if he could,” Shakespeare said, bridling at his lack of concern.
Morley looked up nonchalantly. “I do not need Essex, Mr. Shakespeare. I can fend for myself in this matter, for I have the letters and verses, safe in a place where you will never find them. And I will use them—believe me, I will use them.”
“For what? To put a noose around your own neck, Morley?”
Morley snorted his derision. “Sir Robert Cecil will thank me for bringing them to him, for they will be just the proof he needs. He will give me a pension.”
“Cecil already knows you work for Essex.”
Morley surveyed Shakespeare with disdain. “I had thought you an intelligencer, Mr. Shakespeare. It is a curious word for one of such inferior wit. Yet it will be a great sadness to see your brother carved like pork belly at Tyburn. His Henry the Sixth afforded me much pleasure at The Rose this spring last.”
“If I kill you now, Mr. Morley, Sir Robert will thank me for disposing of a traitor.”
Morley laughed. “You do not have the stomach, Mr. Shakespeare. More pertinently, you do not have the letters and odes your brother wrote in his fine hand. Nor will you find them, for they are not here. Do you think I would leave such stuff lying about?”
Bess was having none of it. She clapped her hands again and a liveried butler entered the room, bowing low. “Mr. Jolyon, you will take two footmen and search Mr. Morley’s quarters—every inch and beneath every floorboard. Bring all papers, correspondence, and documents to me within the hour. You will have two more men do the same in the chamber of the lady Arbella. And see that they are thorough.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“So, then,” Bess said, looking first at Shakespeare and then at Morley, “we shall wait here and see what turns up.”
Shakespeare looked at Morley’s yawning, reptilian face. He was a strange creature. His expression betrayed nothing. Why had Walsingham sent him here to coach a royal heiress? Shakespeare wondered. Such a position was offered to only the most outstanding scholars. This was the sort of man Mr. Secretary used, but never trusted. It had been a most curious misjudgment.
“I know the way Walsingham worked. He paid you to spy on the lady Arbella,” Shakespeare said.
Morley affected a careless shrug of his rather sloping shoulders. “I may have passed him the odd tidbit of interest.”
“And then, on his death, you transferred your allegiance to the Earl of Essex.”
“He was the coming man. Why should I not assist him? No one is closer to Her Majesty, and I know that he is carrying on Mr. Secretary’s excellent work in the war of secrets. Is it treason to make oneself of use to the Queen’s most trusted courtier?”
Shakespeare’s anger erupted. “If you knew what Essex was about, you are guilty of treason. If you did not, you are a swill-witted fool. Why did you not think to approach the Privy Council for approval? There is more to this, Morley. You had another motive.”
Morley kept his silky composure. “I was doing Walsingham’s bidding, nothing more. He put me here. When he died, I became Essex’s man because he took on Walsingham’s duties.”
“But you went much further. Passing secret love poems to the lady Arbella—do you think Mr. Secretary would have approved of that?”
“Who knows? Who could ever tell the workings of Mr. Secretary’s labyrinthine mind?”
“What did Essex offer you? A knighthood? He likes to hand out knighthoods, I do believe. Or gold?”
Morley was silent. He glared at Shakespeare through narrow eyes. Bess of Hardwick looked on, intrigued.
“Or perchance it was silence.”
Morley almost seemed to hiss. His teeth rubbed together and made an unpleasant scratching sound. Shakespeare pushed his right fist hard into the tutor’s sneering mouth, then gripped his throat with his left hand. Blood seeped from Morley’s torn lip onto Shakespeare’s hand.
He held Morley against the wall. Their eyes met and held, Morley’s not quite so assured now. Shakespeare punched him in the guts, then kneed him. Morley groaned and crumpled.
Shakespeare let him fall. He lay on the ground, whimpering.
“Well, Mr. Morley?”
Morley said nothing.
Shakespeare unsheathed his sword. He pulled Morley’s hair up and wrenched his head to one side, then gently slid the sword’s sharp edge against his neck.
Morley was shaking. “I have nothing to say. Kill me.”
Shakespeare laughed. “Oh no, Mr. Morley, I won’t kill you. I will leave that to Skevington’s irons. You will be taken to the Tower, where Mr. Skevington’s engine will bend you double, so contorting your body that blood will spurt from every hole in your miserable carcass until you talk—or die. My lady …”
Taking the cue, Bess clapped her hands. A servant appeared. “Have Mr. Morley taken away under guard. He is to be held in close confinement until arrangements are made to transfer him to the Tower.”
Shakespeare pulled his sword away and resheathed it. “Thank you, my lady.”
The servant was a powerfully built man. He took Morley by the collar and dragged him to his feet.
“Wait,” Morley said, scrabbling against the footman’s grip.
“Take him away.”
“No, I’ll talk.”
Bess nodded to the servant, who dropped Morley, then retreated from the room.
“Well, Mr. Morley?” Shakespeare demanded again.
“A plague of Satan’s vomit and ten thousand hells on you, Shakespeare. I think you know exactly why I had to do their bidding.”
“McGunn.”
“Of course McGunn. And his demon acolytes Jaggard and Slyguff. They lure you in and trap you.”
“You have secrets …”
“ ‘Here is Master Smith,’ they say. ‘Is he not a fine lad?’ And he was a fine lad, the most golden boy I ever saw. And then comes Master Abel, a slender eleven years with the knowing ways of one twice his age. ‘He is an even finer lad, with Moorish tricks to please you,’ they say. On and on they come—three, four, five, six of them to my chamber over days and weeks, and I am in very heaven.” He sighed and shook his head. “They were beautiful, oh, they were beautiful. But they were rotten, every one. Decayed to the core—like apples that are juicy red on the outside but corrupt within, all eaten by worms.” He uttered a dry, sardonic laugh. “And the law was the least of their threats. McGunn is the Devil. He sees men’s weaknesses and buys their souls. Once bought, you are his forever.”
There was a knock at the library door. The butler entered, a jewel-encrusted box held across his outstretched arms. He placed it on the table in front of Bess, then bowed and retreated.
“I wonder what we have here,” she said, lifting the hinged lid.