Rory Clements - The Queen's man

His life from boyhood had been as a cooper, a builder of barrels, aboard ships sailing out of the west country. Most recently, he had been with Sir Francis Drake during his great three-year circumnavigation of the globe. It was a voyage that had destroyed his love of the sea for ever. He had seen brutality and suffered hunger that no man would wish to repeat.

Sheffield may have been a less hostile part of the world, but it was as unknown to him as Peru or the Moluccas had been. Where was he supposed to start in looking for these two men, Ord and Leloup? He had no idea what they looked like and he knew no one here who might help him.

On arrival at the ruined house, he went straight to the barn where Shakespeare had found Lady Bole and her children. They were no longer there. Nor were they in any of the other outhouses. Boltfoot picked over the blackened remnants of the main building, but could find nothing to suggest where they might have gone. After an hour of searching, he mounted up for the two-mile ride back to Sheffield. A hundred yards along the track, he spotted a figure standing by a small cart, watching him. Still on horseback, Boltfoot approached the figure and saw a man in peasant rags. Boltfoot lifted his head in silent greeting.

‘Good day, master.’

‘I’m not your master,’ Boltfoot said.

‘You’re no ploughman or cowherd, that’s for certain.’

It had never occurred to Boltfoot that he could be mistaken for anyone’s master. He might not wear the ragged smock and hat of a farmhand, but he knew that his face was the lined, weather-beaten face of mariners and working men the world over. No one could take his leather jerkin and plain hose for the attire of a man of note.

‘I am looking for the lady of the manor. Lady Bole. She was here.’

‘She’s gone. Flown with her children.’

‘Where to?’

The man blew his nose into his cupped hands, then wiped them on his rags and grinned, revealing his one remaining tooth. ‘Who did you say you were, master?’

‘My name is Cooper.’

‘Well, Mr Cooper, I think she is looking for a place of safety. Nothing left for her here.’

‘And who are you? Do you work here?’

‘Aye. Wilfred’s the name. Worked this farm all my life, boy and man.’

‘Where are all the other farmhands and servants?’

‘They’re about. Mostly in the woods until they be certain the soldiers have all gone for good. None of us got anywhere else to go, unless we can find work on nearby farms.’

‘And the livestock?’

‘Not for me to say.’

Boltfoot dug his hand into the pocket of his jerkin. Mr Shakespeare had told him that he would be repaid if he needed to give a coin or two for information. ‘There’s a halfpenny here. It’s yours if you can help me find someone.’

‘You mean Lady Bole?’

‘No. A man named Buchan Ord. Acquaintance of Sir Bassingbourne, so I’m told. Scotch, he is, so he won’t talk like anyone from hereabouts.’

‘Never heard of the man but I’ll ask about. How much would it be worth?’

‘This halfpenny for the information, then sixpence if I find Mr Ord. You can share the sixpence as you please.’

‘Scotchman, you say? This wouldn’t have aught to do with the Scotch Queen, would it?’

‘That’s for me to know.’

‘I may be naught but an old farmboy, but I know danger when I see or hear it. Look what’s happened to Bassy Bole. Going for the chop, folk say. So any word pertaining to the Scotch Queen or priests would be mighty perilous and would cost more than a pretty sixpence.’

‘Find someone who knows something, then we’ll talk money.’

‘Fair enough, Mr Cooper. Fair enough. Where can a man find you?’

‘Cutler’s Rest in Sheffield.’

Shakespeare and Topcliffe arrived at Tutbury in the late afternoon. High on an earthwork mound in the middle of a plain, the old castle stood stark and forlorn against a darkening sky, its turrets and chimneys as numerous as the prickles on a hedgehog.

To the front it looked towards the peaks of Derbyshire. To the south was the small town of Tutbury, backed by the royal forest of Needwood where a wealth of boar and deer roamed wild. But the woodland was far enough distant to pose no threat of cover to an enemy. Indeed, there had been a fortification here for almost a thousand years, so readily defendable was it.

‘Should never have moved the heifer away from here,’ Topcliffe said as they reined in at the base of the enormous earthwork and looked across the moat to the tower gatehouse and crenellated walls.

‘Why is that, Mr Topcliffe?’

‘Because she loathed the place.’ Topcliffe laughed. ‘Cold. Damp. Filthy. Beset by bitter, foul-smelling winds beneath the doors and through the windows. She complained each day with tears and wailing. And to hear her complain and weep would cheer the heart of any true Englishman. Come on, let’s get on with it.’

Shakespeare’s immediate impression was that Tutbury Castle enjoyed a powerful defensive position, with magnificent views for many miles around in all directions across the town to the forest and the Staffordshire countryside. But he soon realised, too, that that was the sum of its attractions. As Topcliffe had said, there was, indeed, a festering damp and rotten air to the place. In the state rooms at the southern quarter of the castle, where Mary had stayed — the great chamber and hall — water ran in rivulets down the walls along brown-stained grooves. In many places the plaster had peeled back. Mildew assailed the nose.

The grey-haired porter and his pinch-mouth wife clearly knew Topcliffe well, for they welcomed him like a long-lost son.

‘Come in, Mr Topcliffe, come in. This is a rare privilege, sir. Will you be staying with us? Will roast beef and curlew pie suit for your supper, sir?’

‘One night is all, Mr and Mrs Harkness. And a piece of your curlew pie would sit well with me.’

They ushered him in with great extravagant bowings and scrapings, disregarding Shakespeare as though they thought he might be Topcliffe’s servant. He was having none of it. He reached out and stayed the porter, gripping his shoulder as he turned away.

‘My name is John Shakespeare. I am here from the office of Sir Francis Walsingham and you will extend me every courtesy.’

The porter looked at him for a few moments, and then turned back to Topcliffe. ‘We shall have a fire laid in your chamber, master, the room you liked so well when last you were here.’

Topcliffe grinned. ‘He means the one where the cold does not seep in through the devil’s nooks and holes.’

‘And for your companion, Mr Topcliffe?’

‘Why, I do believe he might enjoy the heifer’s privy chamber. What say you, Shakespeare?’

He knew that they were trying to discomfit him, but they were wrong; the truth was, he would like to sleep there. It would be instructive to learn how Mary Stuart had felt in the room. A night there might tell him if there was any hope of bringing it up to a suitable standard to house a Queen.

Boltfoot was in the taproom of the Cutler’s Rest, enjoying a quart of ale and the heat from the fire in the hearth. He had finished his supper and was trying to think straight about his next move. Across the room, walking towards a booth, he spotted the sentry he had met the night before, at the castle gate. His instinct was to shy away from the man, for he might desire revenge for the trouble caused him. Instead, he steeled himself and approached the guard.

‘Do you recognise me?’

‘Aye, I do. Larks and quails! And I should run you through with my short sword, you worthless scraping of dog turd.’