Rory Clements - The Queen's man

‘You looking for something, Mr Cooper?’ one of the grooms asked after Boltfoot had been standing around, helplessly, for the best part of an hour.

‘No, nothing. Passing the time of day.’

‘Well, it’s a fine enough day.’

‘Miss Whetstone, does she have a swain?’ The words came out without thought, blurted like a blabbering child.

‘Now why would you be asking something like that? Fancy she’d look at a cripple like you, do you? Like your chances there, eh? Fair pair of paps on her, would you be thinking? Soft rounded belly — don’t suppose a mongrel like you gets much of that.’

Boltfoot ignored the insult. The ostler was ugly enough himself. ‘Curiosity, that’s all. Fine-looking woman like that — how be it she don’t have no husband yet?’

‘Why don’t you ask her yourself? Make her an offer. Shilling should do it. That’s what she usually charges.’

Boltfoot frowned at the ostler. ‘That’s no way to talk about your master’s daughter.’

The groom laughed. ‘What would Kat Whetstone want with a swain? The whole world loves her — why would she need one man? Don’t need a husband to feed her when she’s got the Cutler’s Rest, do she?’

‘What of a foreign man, a Scotch fellow?’

The groom stiffened visibly at the suggestion. ‘You’re awful inquisitive for a man who’s a stranger himself. I think Goodman Whetstone might like to hear about your questions.’

‘Wait. I’m just looking for the Scotchman, that’s all. Heard he had been sniffing around Kat Whetstone. My master wishes to talk with him.’

The groom, who was only a shade bigger than Boltfoot, grabbed him by the collar of his jerkin.

Boltfoot wrenched himself free and drew his cutlass in one easy move. ‘Touch me again and I’ll cut you.’ He held the edge of the blade close to the man’s throat, then withdrew it and replaced it in his scabbard. From the corner of his eye, he saw a figure standing at the back door to the inn. He turned and met the gaze of Geoffrey Whetstone, resting his enormous bulk against the jamb, his arms folded casually on the platform of his great stomach.

He tilted his head towards Boltfoot. ‘I do not like to see naked blades on my property, Mr Cooper.’ His voice was quiet but audible. ‘Unless they be for the slicing of roasted beef. Come with me.’ He beckoned to Boltfoot to follow him inside. ‘Now tell me, Mr Cooper, what is this about?’ They were in the landlord’s private apartments, a room with two leaded windows that allowed sunlight to stream across the lime-washed wood. Goodman Whetstone sat on a stool by the hearth, lounging back against the wall.

Boltfoot was in too deep now to dissemble. Better to have the truth out and see what he could learn.

‘My master works for the office of the Principal Secretary. He is concerned about the disappearance of a man named Buchan Ord, a courtier from the retinue of the Queen of Scots. And then I was told that your daughter had been his sweetheart. I did not know whether to believe it.’

‘Who told you this?’

‘I cannot give you his name. But tell me this, did he speak true? Was Ord your daughter’s swain or intended?’

‘Best ask her yourself. Better than skulking around, prying like a man with something dirty to hide. I’ll fetch her to you, Mr Cooper. Then you may ask away at will. Though I cannot promise that she will vouchsafe you any answers.’

As they entered Stratford, Shakespeare began to spot old friends from his childhood. The draper George Whateley was first, riding his roan mare at the corner of Guild Street and Bridgefoot. He was about to ride on past when he spotted Shakespeare and reined in, then leant down and shook hands with a firm grip. ‘Well met, John. Folks around here said we’d seen the last of you.’

Shakespeare returned the greeting and smiled warmly at his old Henley Street neighbour. His damask doublet, puffed up like the chest of a pheasant cock, told the tale of his increasing wealth. Shakespeare knew from his mother’s letters how well he was doing. ‘He’ll have bought up the whole town by next year’s Lammastide,’ she had said in her last missive.

Others followed. Tom Godwin, cheerful Obadiah Baker, poor Kate, recently widowed of locksmith Richard Bellamy, the handsome young Hamnet Sadler. Faces welled up from his past in a welcome stream: ploughwright, yeoman, mercer, miller, goodwife, bailiff, vintner, gravedigger. He knew most of them by name, and they knew him. This was the place he had been born and raised, a town of two thousand souls, some rich, many poor and others doing well enough, like the Shakespeares.

The market was closing down for the day. Livestock was being herded away for grazing or slaughter. Shakespeare breathed in the familiar air and felt a surge of remembering. Every town had its own smell, though its constituent parts were the same: dung, ale, piss, sweat and woodsmoke. At the corner of the High Street, he spotted John Somerville, son-in-law to his cousin Edward Arden. Shakespeare hailed him, but Somerville affected not to recognise him or note the greeting, and scurried away, rat-like.

‘Always was a peculiar one, that Somerville.’

‘Grows odder by the day, John. Speaks out against the Queen and Leicester where any man might hear him. I have even heard him say he would kill the witch — as he calls her — if he could. What is worse he has found himself a pistol. A man must have pity on poor Margaret Arden for marrying him.’

‘He says those things openly?’ Shakespeare shook his head in dismay. If Mr Somerville said such things in his vicinity, he would be arraigned for treason before he knew it. Perhaps there had been some truth in Leicester’s description of this region as a Judas nest . Somerville might warrant further investigation.

Along Henley Street, the smell of home grew ever more powerful; even in the street at the front of the broad house, the stench of his father’s tanning in the back yard was noxious. But it was a necessary evil. Without the tanning of skins into fine leather, how was the old man to pursue his craft of glover and whittawer? A man had to earn his living; and the greater the stink, the greater the profit. This was the background odour of his youth, a smell he had known from birth.

Will shifted the saddlebags off the back of the horse for his brother.

‘Why did you say you had come here, John? What is this Queen’s business of which you speak? Am I allowed to know?’

Shakespeare spoke quietly. ‘Unlikely as it may seem, I am seeking a one-armed Frenchman.’

‘Then I shall see if I can find you one. There must be dozens to choose from in Stratford.’

Shakespeare smiled and spent a few moments gazing up at the house where he had been born and raised. It was a broad-fronted, comfortable home of wattle and daub with exposed oak timbers, windows of glass, two chimney stacks and the thatch roof replaced by tiles; a house that most men would envy.

‘You go in, John, I’ll stable the nag.’

Shakespeare frowned at his brother. ‘Is there aught wrong, Will? Something you haven’t told me?’

‘Nothing. No. I have been thinking much of the future. Your arrival has made me reflect all the more on the path I should take. That is all.’

‘Well, let us talk of that over some good Stratford beer.’

He pushed open the door and stepped inside the welcoming hall that stood at the centre of the building and was its heart. A maid was tending to the fire in the hearth. She turned around, scrambled to her feet and bowed her head hurriedly and nervously.

‘Good day, Margery.’

‘Oh, Mr Shakespeare, sir!’

The maid was young. She had been with the Shakespeares less than three years, since she was twelve years of age.