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Shakespeare laughed; it seemed he was taken for a client. The woman disappeared and he looked around the hall. It was beautifully furnished with cushion-laden settles, a polished table and coffers, and drapes about the high windows. He sat down and waited. After a minute a maid appeared, bowed and handed him a pewter pot of beer. He took a deep quaff, enjoying the tang of hops on his parched throat. He noticed some books on the table and picked one up, quickly looking through the pages. He smiled again; they were amatory sonnets. It occurred to him that the fine nature of the room might have led the casual visitor to believe this was a respectable house, but the book gave the lie to that. This was a whorehouse, however it might present itself. He sipped again at the beer and waited.

At the soft whisper of footsteps he looked towards the staircase that curved down from the gallery. A tall and elegant woman was gliding down. Her skin was of the darkest hue that Shakespeare had ever seen, her features exquisite and her bearing regal. As she approached him, with the woman from the door trailing in her wake, she seemed to curtsy, but it wasn’t really that, nothing more in truth than a gracious acknowledgement of his presence.

‘Good day, Mr Shakespeare. It is a great pleasure to meet you. I am Lucy.’

‘How do you know my name?’ He could not take his eyes from her skin, exposed at her neck and face and wrists, vanishing into a gown of gold.

She glanced at the woman at her side. ‘Beth knows you. Think back, Mr Shakespeare. Do you not remember your first love, Beth Evans?’

His brow creased in puzzlement and wonder. Beth Evans? Here, in a whorehouse? Could this be true? He stared at her and his eyes widened in recognition.

‘Beth?’ he said quietly.

‘Yes, it is me, John.’ Her eyes smiled back at him. ‘You really didn’t know me, did you?’

He shook his head.

‘I think you always had your nose in a book when you should have been looking at me.’ Her dark brown eyes and full lips creased in good humour. ‘I have watched your progress from afar, John. You have come a great distance from the Warwickshire meadows where we ran together.’

They had been but sixteen, sweethearts for one summer, or so it seemed. Perhaps five weeks, hardly more, and then she had taken up with the smithy’s son and left Shakespeare heartbroken. He felt a pang at the memory of it; he had sworn to be hers forever and now, when he met her again, he had not known her. How their paths had diverged: he had gone to Gray’s Inn, entered the service of Sir Francis Walsingham and later that of Sir Robert Cecil, and was believed, by some, to be destined for great things. Beth had become a common whore. Well, not so common by the look of her and this sumptuous establishment.

Lucy touched his arm. ‘I am sure there will be time aplenty for you to talk of times past. Come, Mr Shakespeare, how can I help you? I am sure it is not swiving you are after, for Beth assures me you are above the lewd sportings we habitually offer our clients.’

It was true enough, but somehow, in this place, it made him sound a very dull man.

‘I think I know you, John,’ Beth said, ‘even after all these years.’

Of course. He had been slow off the mark that summer of ’75. He had treated her like a lady and talked of Socrates and Bosworth Field, of Chaucer and his great ambitions for himself and England, when all she wanted was to be rolled in the hay like all her friends. ‘It is true,’ he said, nodding with a resigned sigh. ‘You do know me.’ He turned to Lucy. ‘No, I am not here for your services, mistress. I am here on Queen’s business with one question. Do you know the where abouts of Walstan Glebe?’

Lucy furrowed her brow as if she did not quite understand the question, but he was certain he saw a sparkle in her dark brown eyes. ‘Walstan Glebe?’

‘Come, come, mistress, you know him well. L for Liar burned on to his forehead. You must know, too, that I could have this establishment closed down before nightfall and you and all the whores — ’ he caught the accusing stare of Beth Evans — ‘all the occupants interned at Bridewell.’

‘Mr Shakespeare, you do not need to threaten me. I will answer you straight. Of course I know Wally Glebe. But I will not tell you where he is, for that would be a breach of trust. I will, if you wish, get a message to him saying that you would talk with him.’

‘I cannot overemphasise the seriousness of this business. We have reason to believe that Glebe has knowledge of the recent gunpowder atrocity at the Dutch church. If he is in any way involved, then he is guilty of high treason. Anyone withholding evidence of any kind — including knowledge of his whereabouts — will be considered an accessory.’

Lucy folded her arms across her chest. ‘Mr Shakespeare, I wish the culprits caught as much as you. A great many of my clients are strangers from France and the Low Countries. I am, myself, of foreign birth and I do not like this present fervour against strangers. I have said I will go to Glebe — and I will.’

‘No, that is not enough. If you did so he would simply disappear, as he has done before. I have no wish to harm you, mistress, and I care not a jot how you earn your living, but if you do not give me the information I require, pursuivants will take you to the Tower, where you will be subjected to hard questioning none can resist. I must tell you that the Council has authorised the use of torture in this matter.’

‘Then you will have to torture me.’

Shakespeare was bemused. He had always hesitated to use such threats, but when he did they inevitably had an instant and dramatic effect. Not so here; she had not lost her charm, nor her equanimity. Her eyes still looked at him with humour. If she was afraid, there was no sign of it.

‘I will take you to him,’ Beth Evans said.

Shakespeare looked at her, then back to Lucy. Lucy said nothing, but the glimmer of a smile played around her full lips.

‘Will that do?’

‘You know where he is?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, he likes me, too. Return here at seven of the clock and I will take you. I know where he will be at that time, for I have been summoned to him.’

Chapter 8

‘ Mariner were you, Mr Cooper?’ William Sarjent said, his voice booming across the riverbank as they awaited the ferry. ‘A sea battle don’t compare to the stench of powder and the clash of steel on land. When two regiments of foot meet on the field there is no hold to escape to; a captain of infantry cannot just turn with the wind and sail away, Mr Cooper. At the Maas river, in the mud and rain with every man’s powder wet and useless, I was at Norris’s side fighting pike to pike when he received a bloody wound to his chest that brought blood to his mouth, yet still we won the day.’

Boltfoot stood beside his horse in silence. In his ear there was the drum of a man’s voice, but he did not hear the words.

‘I was at Sidney’s side, too, when he received his fatal wound in the Low Countries. Place called Zutphen. We had two hundred foot and three hundred horse. Suddenly the fog lifted and three thousand Spaniards appeared. But we did not turn. No man under Norris’s command ever turned from a fight without express order. Never did you see a more gallant gentleman than Sir Philip Sidney. And Norris is the boldest of them all. You can keep your Drakes and Frobishers, Mr Cooper. They are ducks upon the water, not true fighting men. Norris — there’s a man’s man. Mr Quincesmith was his powder-master and took me as his prentice.’

At last the Woolwich ferry arrived and they walked their horses carefully aboard, amidst a packed group of wagons and a host of foot passengers. The rocking of the tide as the low barge pulled away from its moorings spooked one of the harnessed horses and it had to be restrained from pulling its wagon and several men into the dark grey flood.

On the north side of the Thames, deep in the dockyards that brought the wealth of the world to London, they disembarked from the ferry and mounted up once more. Turning westwards, they quickly joined the river Lea at its mouth and rode inland along its course. The landscape was low and fertile either side of the slow, winding stream. Water meadows and copses bounded the banks. Boltfoot reined in to get his bearings. Three Mills should be close now.