‘What did Stanley want with you just now?’
‘He asked me to arrange his baggage and retinue. He wishes to leave imminently. He is returning to Man.’ Cole smiled, regaining his composure. ‘Was there anything in particular that you wished to talk of, Mr Shakespeare?’
‘Yes. In the first instance, I want one of your servants or riders to take me to where Dr Dee is engaged on his dig. While I am there, I would like you to draw up a list of all who work here and all your guests, both recently departed from the house and those still here. I would know who else is closeted in this great house – and why.’
‘Naturally, I would require the earl’s permission to disclose such information.’
‘I am sure that the earl would do nothing to hamper the inquiries of an officer of Sir Robert Cecil.’
Cole inclined his head. ‘Indeed, sir, I am sure he would not. I will make all haste with your requirements.’
‘What guests are here apart from Dee and myself?’
‘Well, there is Sir William, whom you have just seen. And Lady Eliska from the Bohemian lands, whom I have already mentioned. That is all. It is strangely quiet, sir.’
‘Where is this lady?’
‘She is out on some private business today. I believe she will return in the evening.’
‘I would hear what you know of Mr Dowty.’
‘Michael Dowty? He is our Clerk of the Kitchen.’
‘He says he is the earl’s taster.’
‘That is true.’
‘How long has he been at Lathom?’
‘He arrived a little over a year ago.’
‘That does not seem a great length of service for a man given a position of such trust.’
‘He came with the most impeccable letters of reference, Mr Shakespeare – from the household of Sir Thomas Heneage, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. There can be none better, I think.’
Ah, Heneage again. It seemed he took his duties as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster most seriously. Shakespeare smiled wryly to himself. If Sir Thomas Heneage trusted Dowty, why should any man not?
The muzzle of a petronel appeared from a thicket. It was thrust into the stomach of Shakespeare’s escort and would have blown him away had the trigger been pulled. Oxx, who held the heavy pistol, emerged from the bush, his face uncompromising. He turned to Shakespeare, nodded in recognition and removed the weapon from the man’s belly.
They had ridden out immediately after leaving Cole’s office. Now Shakespeare nodded to Oxx.
‘I presume we are close to Dr Dee’s dig?’
The guard signalled with his head. ‘A little further, beyond the spinney. There are three men with him. We searched them thoroughly, though we know them.’
Behind the clump of woodland, at the edge of a low-lying meadow, Shakespeare found Dr Dee and his three assistants beside a mound of new-dug peat and a deep hole in the ground. There was no sign of Godwit. Shakespeare assumed he was as well concealed as Oxx had been; that, at least, was something.
Dr Dee was sitting on a three-legged stool, wearing his long gown and an exotic, embroidered gold and red cap with a gold-thread tassel. Two of his assistants, working men with their shirt-sleeves rolled to the tops of their weathered and muscled arms, were up to their chests in the hole. The third was standing a little further off, drinking from a beaker of ale and idly flicking a thin, catapult-shaped stick. He looked a different cut from the diggers, for he wore a buttercup silk doublet, its ties unfastened, and green hose.
Shakespeare took in the scene and dismounted. He dismissed his escort and turned to the man he was commissioned to protect.
‘Dr Dee—’ he began sharply.
‘Mr Shakespeare. I trust you found my missive.’
‘I did, and I was mighty displeased.’
‘Oh, Mr Shakespeare, I am quite safe in the hands of Mr Oxx and Mr Godwit.’
‘I have no reason to doubt them, but you must discuss your plans with me before you venture outside the house. Or even your chamber.’
Dee stood up from the stool. His long sleeves fell below his hands so that they were not visible unless he flicked back the cuffs.
‘Mr Shakespeare, I have travelled to the farthest reaches of the world – through the Allemain lands to Bohemia and to Poland, along mountain tracks plagued by bandits and wolves. Do you think me less safe here in England’s green bosom?’
Shakespeare was irritated. ‘It is not so much your safety, Dr Dee, that concerns me as the safety of your knowledge. If an assassin’s ball strikes you dead, then your secret remains secure. But all the while you live, I must protect the knowledge inside your head, whether you like it or not. Do not cross me in this, or I will restrict you further – and I will have the backing of Cecil and the Council.’
Dee, unperturbed, continued to press his case. ‘But am I safer inside Lathom House than here in the open air? Is his lordship, the Earl of Derby, safer in the confines of his home?’
‘You have said enough, Dr Dee. You know my feelings on this – and you will obey me. Who are these men with you?’
Dee smiled. ‘My diggers are honest, hard-toiling peasants as you can surely tell from their callused hands and their skill with pick and shovel.’ He swept his arm in the direction of the third man. ‘My friend over there is Mr Ickman, my scryer.’
Ickman. Shakespeare felt a stab of alarm. The Ickman family had proved useful to Walsingham in the old days before the Armada fright, but Mr Secretary had never really trusted them. Was this man of that clan?
Shakespeare called over to him.
‘Mr Ickman?’
The man approached and bowed with excessive display. ‘Mr Shakespeare … Bartholomew Ickman at your service, sir.’
Shakespeare studied him more closely. Above the costly yellow doublet, he had a face of smooth, burnished skin, so unblemished that it might have been a maiden’s, or an adder’s. It was if he had never grown a beard, nor even shaved. His voice was soft and strangely ethereal.
‘Do I know you, Mr Ickman?’
‘I think not, but I certainly know of you, Mr Shakespeare, for I performed certain duties in the service of Mr Secretary, your chief man that was. You may know my uncle Richard, or brothers William and Ambrose.’
Shakespeare held his gaze steady. He certainly knew Richard Ickman, and a more villainous creature he had seldom met. He was a broad, rough bully of a man, who had made a great deal of money from his crooked dealings. He looked nothing like this sylph-like fellow.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Assisting my good friend and patron, Dr Dee, as always.’
Shakespeare gave him a severe look. ‘That is no answer. Why are you here at Lathom in Lancashire? And you, Dr Dee, why did you not mention his presence to me?’
‘Bartholomew is my medium, my pathway to the great world of spirits beyond. Few have such a gift. I had once thought Mr Kelley – but that is another story. We are here, together, to find a hoard of Roman gold, of which we have sure information. This chart, on ancient parchment …’
Dee opened a wooden box that lay on the ground at his feet and produced the map that Shakespeare recognised as the one he had seen on the doctor’s table the previous evening.
‘… it is very fragile because of its great age, but it tells of a Roman governor of Deva Victrix – the city we now know as Chester. He had a country villa where Lathom House is now situated. The parchment implies that he buried the gold coin for safe keeping at a time of great unrest towards the end of the fourth century, intending to return for it one day. There is no reason to believe he ever had the opportunity to come back, so it should still be here.’