Rory Clements - Traitor

‘Well, I did, John,’ Heneage said. ‘As did many others, some with no more than a cross of ink to signify their mark. But in 1586, when Mary Queen of Scots plotted against her cousin’s life, the Bond proved worthless. The Scots devil’s gaoler, Amyas Paulet, refused to kill her for her sins, though he himself had signed the Bond in seeming good faith and though Walsingham wrote begging him in such wise to do his duty as a man. It would have been the easy way out for all concerned. A drop of poison in her food or wine, an unfortunate accident out riding. It would have been the decent, manly thing to do. But Paulet was squeamish and cowardly. “God forbid that I should make so foul a shipwreck of conscience,” he wrote back. So, instead, the whole burden was laid on Her Majesty. She had to sign the warrant of death and suffer the onslaught of venom from the world outside England. I believe the beheading of her cousin did age Her Majesty ten years.’

Shakespeare was not convinced. Being monarch came with responsibility as well as privilege.

Heneage sensed his doubts. ‘She may be our sovereign, yet she is a woman, too, and a virgin. She has no husband to protect her, so we must. On bended knee, I vowed to her then that she would never be placed in such a position again.’

‘So you had the Earl of Derby killed, believing him a traitor?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you are a murderer.’

‘Executioner.’

‘Why are you telling me this? Do you not fear what I might do with such information?’

Heneage smiled. ‘I am telling you because there is no reason not to. We are both on the same side, Mr Shakespeare, a fact that Mr Ickman forgot, to his great misfortune. Besides, I am sure you would not flatter yourself that you pose any threat to me.’

‘And does Her Majesty know of your part in Lord Derby’s death?’

‘No. She must never know. It was done for her and for England, but I could not place such mortal sin on her slender shoulders. I am a loyal subject and a man. Derby was a traitor. As I was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, it fell to me to deal with him. He came under my jurisdiction. It was my duty to judge him and see sentence carried out. My responsibility.’

‘Do you have proof of his supposed treason?’

‘He was plotting with the Jesuits to be king. You yourself saw the hiding place he kept for the priest Lamb. Harbouring a Jesuit? That is enough to have any common husbandman or goodwife, yeoman or burgess, taken to the scaffold. His followers and retinue were almost all Catholic; the whole palatinate of Lancashire is a very pestilence of recusancy. My Duchy attorney Thomas Hesketh, who also signed the Bond, swims against a great floodtide of rebellion. Even his own brother was a betrayer.’

‘You should have had Derby brought before a court and tried.’

‘Then we would have had to ask the Queen to sign the death warrant for yet another cousin. What sort of man would require that of his sovereign lady? We are at war, Mr Shakespeare. Did Throckmorton or Babington or Parma or Philip of Spain demand a trial for Elizabeth before doing their utmost to assassinate her? If I am morally wrong, then God will punish me and I will accept His judgment, as we all must. But even faced with the eternal fire, I will not repent, for I know I did the correct thing. I did my duty.’

‘Then there is nothing more to say. Everything in the Lamb letter was true. Here.’ Shakespeare took the letter from his doublet and handed it to Sir Thomas. ‘You should have this. Do with it what you will.’

Heneage took the letter and laid it aside. A fire was burning in the hearth, but he did not place the letter in the flames.

‘Thank you, John. It is better in my hands than the Pope’s, that is certain.’

Heneage put out his hand. Shakespeare looked at it, but did not take it.

‘It is the hand of friendship, John. I never meant you harm. I accept that I erred in using the services of Ickman. What he put you and your family through was beyond enduring. But he will trouble us no more. He has paid the price.’

What was it the sergeant, Cordwright, had said while he awaited death in Weymouth gaol? When we are not a-soldiering, Provost Pinkney and me do little tasks for a certain great personage, a man whose word is his bond . Perhaps they, too, had signed the wretched Bond of Association.

Heneage’s eyes met Shakespeare’s. His hand waited, but Shakespeare did not take it.

Instead he turned away and walked towards the door. He liked Heneage. He found much to respect in his unquestioning love and loyalty for his monarch. Yet he could not admire the man, and he would never shake his blood-stained hand.

Shakespeare and Andrew reined in beside a field in Cambridgeshire. The day was cold. Flurries of snow were in the air, though none of it was settling on the ground.

They looked across a bleak field of beet that had failed and fallen to weed and rot.

‘Over there,’ Andrew said.

A thin trail of smoke rose from a small fire at the other side of the field, near a spinney. A horse was tethered to a tree and a piece of tarpaulin had been stretched across a lattice of branches to make a small shelter.

They kicked on across the field. A figure rose from beside the fire and edged towards the horse as though about to mount up, ride away and escape. But then the figure stopped.

They could see her clearly now. Her fair hair and pinched face, her slender arms and waist. And she could see them, for she started walking towards them. Andrew slid from the saddle and walked towards her. Shakespeare held back and watched from twenty yards’ distance.

Ursula had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She hunched into it.

‘Andrew pigging Woode,’ she said. ‘Fancy you being alive.’

‘Thanks to you, Ursula pigging Dancer.’

She laughed. ‘Soldier, now, are you?’

He nodded and glanced across to Shakespeare, who shrugged his shoulders. He had other ideas.

‘So what are you doing here?’

‘Looking for you. Reaphook told me where you came from. I thought you’d come looking for your family.’

She laughed again, but without smiling this time. ‘Shouldn’t have bothered, should I? Knocked at the door of their great manor house and this old servant told me to go away. I said I was family, long-lost kin. He looked at me as if I was a dog turd and went away. Then he came back with this evil old woman with a walking stick. Well, she stared at me and it was as if she’d seen a pigging ghost or something. Staffy always said I looked like my mother, so I suppose she thought I was her. I think the woman was my grandmother, but all she did was start hitting me with her stick. Beat me around the head with it, and she could hit hard for an old one.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I ran. What else should I do? I know when I’m not pigging wanted. Shouldn’t have gone there. Why would I want anything to do with people like that?’

‘Come home with us. We’re your family now.’

She huddled deeper into the blanket and looked away.

‘There’s nothing for you here, Ursula. You just said so yourself.’

She was shaking her head. ‘I won’t fit in. Didn’t fit in at that house in the shire of Kent, did I? They treated me like a skivvy and kept making dirty remarks about me. And they knew I heard them. Called me slut and drab and thief.’

‘Well, you are a thief! You stole their horse to prove it.’

‘I didn’t steal the nag, I borrowed it. Anyway, that’s by the by. I’m not a slut nor a drab.’

‘No, you’re not. So come with us. What have you got to lose?’

‘I don’t know.’

Shakespeare had dismounted now. He walked to her and put an arm around her shoulder. ‘You’ll work for us, but you won’t be a skivvy. You’ll help Jane with the children and the running of the house, and we’ll give you an education. Teach you to read and write.’