Chapter 41

SHAKESPEARE STOOD AT THE BACK DOOR TO THE farmhouse, looking out across the lush fields. He understood why Boltfoot had thought to bring the woman here, yet he was angry that he had brought McGunn after them and endangered their families.

In the distance, he could see the three women walking his way, carrying baskets laden with berries. In the center was Catherine. He shivered at the sight of her, the most beautiful woman ever made by God. He watched her walking slowly through the long damp grass as in a dream.

On her right was the woman he took to be her mother. Smaller, her hair graying, but unmistakably her mother, Mary, for whom their own child was named.

And the fair, pretty woman on the left, was that really Eleanor Dare, one of the lost settlers of Roanoke? What strange story would this woman have to tell?

At the back of the house there was a vegetable garden with a chicken run, a pig shed, three beehives, and a little area of lawn. Beyond it, to the left of an orchard, heavy with red apples, there was a low stone wall with a gate, a little over fifty yards from the house. As the three women came through the gate, Catherine saw him for the first time.

Her pace quickened. She moved away from the other women, walking toward him. He had thought of this moment so often during the long saddle-sore hours, wondering how she would receive him.

She took his hands in hers and smiled. For a few moments, they looked into each other’s eyes. At last she spoke, laughter in her beautiful voice. “I can’t get away from you, can I, Mr. Shakespeare? You follow me to the ends of the earth.”

He tried to laugh, too. “I thought to do some business here, Mistress Shakespeare. As a wool factor, perchance, if I can find a sheep or two.”

“There are none in these parts, sir.”

“More than enough shepherds, though—and most of them being fleeced in the inns and ordinaries.”

“Will you bleat nonsense all day long, sir, or will you kiss your wife?”

He kissed her. Though they were observed, he kissed her lips and her mouth long and deep. He closed his eyes and wished fervently that the world and everyone in it would simply vanish for an hour or two, so that he might raise her skirts, here and now in this commonplace yard, and enter her.

He pulled back from her and gazed upon her face. It was wet with salt tears. Were they hers or his? It did not matter. What mattered now was that they were in grave danger, all of them. McGunn was here—and it was not likely he would be alone.

“It is good to see you, John. We have missed you greatly.”

“We have been absent from each other too long. But I bring grim tidings.” He turned toward the women accompanying her. “Mistress Dare”—he bowed—“you and Mr. Boltfoot Cooper have been followed. I have information that the man who would kill you is in the town.”

Eleanor Dare’s face was drained of color and expression. Her eyes darted, as though looking for the bolt or arrow or ball that would cut her down. “Then I have to get away,” was all she said.

“I agree.” He turned now to Catherine’s mother. “Mistress Marvell”—he bowed again—“can you think of any place where we might safely go? The killer knows of this house.”

CATHERINE’S PARENTS would not leave their home, but everyone else in the house had to go. They traveled in separate directions in the late evening light. The three children went with Jane and the baby to the home of the constable, a friend of long standing, who had two strong lads. Jane would ask the constable to go to the town elders to see what could be done to raise an armed force to take on McGunn and his men. It occurred to Shakespeare, though, that a small, remote town like Masham would be unlikely to have anyone who could deal with a heavily armed mercenary such as McGunn.

The others—Shakespeare, Boltfoot, Catherine, and Eleanor Dare—saddled up and rode along the Jervaulx road. The roads were full of livestock, farmworkers, and horsemen, some bound for the sheep fair, others heading home.

Shakespeare had not wanted his wife to ride with them. “The children need you,” he had said, but she refused.

“How will you know where you are going without me?”

He had shrugged his shoulders. She was, of course, right.

Along the way, he told Boltfoot of Jack Butler’s fate.

“The hew and punch,” said Boltfoot, shaking his head. “I have seen it done before by trained men in battle.”

“But McGunn is not an English man-at-arms.”

Boltfoot rode on in silence for a few hundred yards before speaking. “I have also heard of it used as a method of dispatch under other circumstances: summary execution of captive enemies not worth ransoming. It is bloody, but effective and quick.”

By the time they neared their destination, three or four miles distant, scarcely a soul was on the road. The last of the gray daylight was turning to black.

Catherine slowed to a halt and her husband reined in sharply. The skeletal remains of the old abbey stood gaunt against the darkening northern sky. The rain was coming again and the wind was blowing up. God, but this was a bleak place. At their coming, a band of vagabonds scuttled away into the night like a family of squat rats. Shakespeare paid them no heed.

Catherine indicated somewhere in the dark fields and woods beyond the ruins of the abbey. “Just yonder, on the edge of the river. The shepherd’s cottage. It has been used by our cousins for many years. No one will disturb us there and he will never find us. We can make other plans on the morrow.”

Shakespeare kicked on slowly. They were away from the road now and it was almost impossible to see their way, for though they had pitch torches, it would be too dangerous to light them. All they could do was walk their horses as cautiously as possible in the moonlight, which gave a thin glow to the clouds; any sudden inclines or potholes could cause them to stumble. The scattered abbey stones, those that had not been stolen away after the dissolution, were the greatest hazard.

Catherine rode up beside her husband, picking her way between the ruins. “It is all vanity and power, my husband, here in these stones.”

Shakespeare breathed deeply but said nothing.

“This place was dedicated to the Virgin, the mother of God’s only begotten son, but it was destroyed by a devil masquerading as a man, a devil who thought nothing of relieving his own wives of their heads and who tore down God’s houses as if they were children’s castles of mud.”

“I understand your feelings, Catherine. And I am truly sorry for all that came between us these past days.”

“I know, John. I am sorry, too.”

The house was pitch-dark. Catherine dismounted first and walked to the door. It was unlocked and she pushed it open, hesitating a moment before stepping inside. She had spent happy summers here in her childhood. She and her cousins had played in these fields and in the ruins of the abbey, splashing in the river, climbing the perilous walls, and hiding in old hearths among the weeds and undergrowth that ran riot through the ancient stones where once Cistercian monks had spent their lives in worship and work.

Boltfoot was close behind her, lighting one of the pitch torches they had brought with them. He looked around. It was cold, damp, and empty, a two-room house with bare stone walls and no hiding places. Each room had a single window, but neither of them had glass, so they were exposed to the wind and rain; all the building provided was a roof over their heads.

They had loaded their pack-saddles with meats, cheese, bread, ale, water, and blankets. Soon they had a fire going in one of the rooms and ate their fill in silence, wondering where they might seek a more permanent shelter on the morrow. Outside, the wind hammered against the door. The torch and candles inside guttered in the draft and threw strange shadows across the walls.

Shakespeare stood up. “We are sitting here like targets. Boltfoot.”

Boltfoot nodded his head and growled. He knew what to do. He rose, unslung his caliver, took the dry powder horn from beneath his hide jerkin, and handed it and the firearm to Shakespeare. Then he thrust his cutlass into his belt and stepped out into the squally darkness.

The rain and wind blew in at the opening of the door, extinguishing the candles. The torch stayed alight.

At last Shakespeare turned to Eleanor Dare. “This is a most curious way to meet, mistress,” he said. “I must confess that when my lord of Essex asked me to find you, I had never thought that this day would come.”

“Thank you for helping me.”

“I confess, too, that I was not happy when I discovered you were here, for it seemed you had brought evil with you. Men are dying because of this curious quest to find you.”

Catherine put an arm around the woman. “Do not be hard, John. Eleanor has told me a little of what she knows. There is a story within her that burns her like a fever. Perhaps she will tell it, while we sit and wait for morning.…”

“As you wish. Tell it as best you may and I will listen.”