Rory Clements - The Queen's man

As the minstrel ambled past him, he made an obscene gesture with his curled fist and smirked. Boltfoot ignored him and mounted the wooden steps to the first gallery.

‘Ah, Mr Cooper,’ Kat said, ‘be pleased to ask the kitchens to provide me with food for my breakfast.’

‘Breakfast! It is almost midday. We must be riding on. We have tarried here too long.’ Boltfoot gazed at her in horror. She wore a long shirt, to her knees and, seemingly, nothing else.

‘But, Mr Cooper, I have a mind to stay here a day or two longer. My business is not quite finished yet.’

‘No. We ride within the hour.’

‘And if I refuse?’

‘You cannot refuse.’

She reached out to him. Her hand went to the front of his hose. He looked down in astonishment. Her hand stayed there.

‘Would that make it better, Mr Cooper? Is that what you want?’

As he walked into the village, it occurred to Shakespeare that he kept losing people. So far the only one who had turned up was Benedict Angel, and he was dead. This was not going well. He found his brother in the small village alehouse, which amounted to no more than the front room of a modest thatched cottage — a cramped taproom with dirt and sawdust floor.

‘Any word, Will?’

‘Florence is home. Safe and sound.’

‘Thank God. Where was she?’

‘Won’t say a word. Not to Anne, nor me. Perhaps she has told her mother. Then again, John, it is possible she does not know where she has been. There have been times these past weeks where I doubted her sanity. The pursuivants destroying her home, the terrible falling sickness. If truth be told, Anne did not sleep last night for fear Florence had cut her own throat or was lying in the woods somewhere, lost to the world.’

‘What state was she in when she arrived home?’

‘Much as she left, I think. Her clothes were not torn or muddied, if that is what you mean.’

‘I shall go to her.’

‘Be gentle. She arrived only an hour since. Anne and her mother are with her. It would not take much to tip her over the precipice. She needs to be helped, not rebuked.’

‘I understand.’ He signalled to the potboy and ordered a pint of small ale, then told his brother about his encounter with Rafe Rench. ‘Do you have any thoughts, Will?’

‘Another poke of the stick? That’s clear enough. Rench wants the Angels’ house and the small strip of land where they grow their food and keep their pig. It abuts his own land. He has been offering to buy it from her this past year, ever since Benedict was first arrested. But she won’t sell. And why should she, for we must all eat? Rench believes it is only a matter of time before she is forced to move away, and he wants to ensure that he is the beneficiary. Anything that helps drive out the Angels would suit him. Each fine for recusancy, each pursuivants’ raid is a poke. Folk around here believe the raids have nothing to do with religion and all to do with driving an innocent woman from her home. That is why they think the death of Benedict Angel is another prod to force her out.’

‘Are you saying Rench killed Benedict? Is that what people believe?’

Will drew in a short breath through his teeth, then shook his head. ‘I would not have said so, but who knows?’ He tilted his chin towards one of the other drinkers. ‘There’s Humfrey Ironsmith. He found the body.’

‘Bring him over here.’

‘As imperious as ever, John? This is just like when you were ten and I was four or five. You were Robin Hood and I was Will Scarlet or some other minion to be ordered here and there, to fetch and carry.’

‘You can either assist me, or not, Will.’

Will smiled. ‘I suppose being the eldest brother must be allowed its rewards.’ He rose from the bench, and went across to the table where Ironsmith sat with two other drinkers. After a brief conversation, Ironsmith stood up and dragged his hanging belly over to the Shakespeares’ table.

‘Good day, Humfrey.’

‘And you, John Shakespeare.’

‘Still shoeing horses?’

‘Aye. Staying alive in hard times.’

‘Will tells me it was you who discovered the body.’

‘Aye.’

‘Did you touch the corpse?’

‘No, didn’t need to. I could tell he was dead and gone. Seen enough death in my time.’

‘Did you touch the cord or the rosary?’

‘No.’

‘Did anyone else interfere with it in any way?’

‘No. Not as I know, leastwise. As far as I know he was just as you saw him.’

‘There were many footprints in the mud and dust when I saw the body.’

‘I called out, blew my whistle and the searchers all came running, that’s why.’

‘But were any footprints there when you found him?’

Ironsmith rubbed his belly, then scraped his fingers through the straggles of his hair. He narrowed his eyes as though trying to recollect something. ‘You know, John,’ he said at last, ‘I really couldn’t say. I was looking at poor Benedict Angel, not the earth around him.’

‘ Poor Benedict Angel? Was he a friend?’

‘I had nothing against him. Oh, I heard what you lads all thought of him when you were at the school together. I thought he was not treated well, to tell true. I go to the parish church, but I will hold no man’s religion against him. And Benedict never did me no harm. I would say, too, that Widow Angel was always a good woman and a respectable neighbour. The pursuivants will take it out on the Dibdales next. Then who? Which one of us is safe if we miss a Sunday or two at church?’

‘And you have no fear expressing this opinion to me, knowing that I am an officer of the crown?’

‘No, I have no fear. I tell you the old folks are bewildered. Take Widow Boyce. She’ll be eighty this December, God willing. She recalls the year Great Henry came to the throne and there was much rejoicing with a fair here in Shottery. She will tell you of the friars and the monks and nuns that walked these lanes, and she recalls being told by the priest at Holy Trinity Church that if she was a good Catholic and attended mass and said confession and lived her life in the ways of Rome, then she would go to heaven. Now she is told that if she were to help that priest, she would be a traitor. How do you reconcile that, Mr Shakespeare? It is a topsy-turvy world where virtue becomes crime.’

‘Things change, Humfrey. The Roman Church had become corrupted by avarice and venery. The relics, the sale of indulgences. And so we must deal with things as they stand now.’

‘Aye, things change — and so do you. I would say you have become a Queen’s man before a Stratford man and I had always held you and your family in good regard, John Shakespeare.’

‘What do you think of Rafe Rench?’

‘He is a grasping, bullying toad. His son is lower than the belly of an adder.’

‘Is that the common feeling hereabouts?’

‘You’ll be hard put to find any man or woman in Shottery with a better opinion of either of them.’

‘Thank you, Humfrey. You will make yourself available to the coroner in due course.’

‘Aye. I know my duty well enough. But I would say this to you, John: whatever your fine office, you’d best be wary how you cross Rafe Rench and his boy. They got Sir Thomas Lucy on their side, and he’s backed by Lord high-and-mighty Leicester. Just be wary, lad, that’s all I am saying. There’s a darkness come over this once pleasant land. You will even find families cleaved clean in two, which is something no one should endure.’

As Humfrey Ironsmith returned to his drinking companions, Shakespeare exchanged glances with his brother and thought of their own family. Whatever their religious differences, such matters had never divided them.