Rory Clements - The Heretics

Shakespeare continued to write his note to Cecil. Within a minute his adopted son, Andrew Woode, appeared in the doorway.

‘Andrew.’

‘You wanted me, Father?’

‘I had meant to talk with you at length this day, Andrew. But I must be away on Queen’s business. For the present, I desire you to know that I have been considering your suggestion with great care and I have concluded that you are truly set on a seafaring life. So, yes, you may go with Drake and Hawkins with my blessing, if they will accept you. Mr Hakluyt’s book Principal Navigations has much to answer for, I fear.’

Andrew beamed. ‘Thank you, Father.’

‘You should talk with Boltfoot. No man knows the hazards and joys of the sea better than he does.’

Andrew laughed. ‘I have already spoken with Boltfoot. He thinks I am mad to even consider going with Drake on his voyage. He says he will rob me and treat me like a dog. Also, that I will die of scurvy if I have not first drowned or been killed by a Spaniard.’

‘And you are not deterred? You may have the size and strength of a man, Andrew, and I know how brave you are, but you are still only fourteen years.’

Andrew walked forward and knelt before Shakespeare. He kissed his hand. ‘The world is out there, beyond the western sea, and it holds my future. I am more certain of this than anything in my life.’

Shakespeare gazed down fondly at the boy he regarded as his own son. Andrew’s short life had not been easy, and Shakespeare knew that he had considered his decision to go to sea with great thoroughness.

‘Then God speed you, boy. And learn well. Master the astrolabe and quadrant, the hourglass, the compass and the chart, for then you will be a true mariner and indispensable to your captain. But that is for tomorrow. For today, I have an errand for you.’ He folded the letter he had been writing and sealed it, then handed it to Andrew. ‘Take this to Sir Robert Cecil for me.’

Regis Roag slid from the saddle in the noisy Plaza de la Magdalena. He had been riding since dawn, but he was still cool and his long, oak-brown hair was unruffled. With sharp, experienced eyes, he glanced around at the bustle of traders, the working men, the women scrubbing stone steps and the promenading senoras in their mantillas. All the time, he looked for the face that might seem out of place. As a hunter of men, he knew how to spot a predator.

There was warmth and the scent of orange in the evening air. Roag breathed deeply. Seville was a fine place. The magnificent buildings, the wide-open squares, the perfume of strange plants and incense, the many religious houses, the workers in gold: all spoke of a town created by God. This was the wealthiest city in the greatest empire in history — a world away from the mud, stench and squalor of lowly London, the city that had spat him out like a stone, and its dirty neighbour Southwark, the place of his birth.

Tethering his horse to the base of a palm tree, he composed a smile and pushed open the door of the four-storey, anonymous house that held the grand title of the College of St Gregory. It was an inadequate building for its purpose, a poor tenement wedged between a bakery with intoxicating aromas and a leather shop that exuded animal stench.

He recoiled at the noxious blend of stinks. This was no place for the training of young men in the disciplines of faith. The boys who came here from England needed to pray and meditate in quiet solitude if they were to return to their homeland as God’s soldiers and to die as martyrs. Here, they were closeted together like sheep in a pen. In the high summer, they sweltered, with no relief from the cloying heat and the stale sweat of each other’s unwashed bodies.

Even as he stepped inside, he sensed panic in the air. A boy, no more than eleven years of age, was scurrying past. Roag grabbed him by the shoulder. ‘Where is Father Persons?’

The boy was wide-eyed. ‘He is with Thomas Eaglet.’

‘Where?’

‘In the sickroom, at the back.’

‘Take me there.’

A group of robed men stood around a bed. Roag instantly spotted Father Robert Persons among them. He was standing beside his assistant, Father Joseph Creswell.

Roag touched Persons on the shoulder. Slowly, he turned around and Roag saw that the priest’s once-handsome eyes were deep and haggard.

Persons made the sign of the cross. ‘ Dominus vobiscum , my son.’

Roag bowed, his mane of hair falling about his glowing face. ‘ Et cum spiritu tuo , Father.’

‘You have arrived at a most sad time, Mr Roag.’

‘So it seems.’

‘Thomas Eaglet is close to death.’

Roag looked beyond Persons to the shrunken figure curled up on the cot, laid on his side to minimise the pain. But it seemed Eaglet was already past such worldly cares. His shallow breathing was only just audible.

To Roag, the dying man’s body looked like raw flesh on a butcher’s counter. He gazed on the loathsome mess of meat with interest, nothing more. No skin was visible save on Eaglet’s face and hands.

‘How has he come to this state, Father?’

‘He scourged himself with a flail. It is white martyrdom . That is what we will call it, but it is a waste. It is not true martyrdom. It will be the second such death at St Gregory’s this year. Such things unsettle our other young men and boys.’

Roag nodded. More than the unsettling of the boys here, he realised that if news of the event reached England it would not reflect well upon the Society of Jesus. ‘I will end his misery.’ His hand went to his dagger.

Shock registered on Persons’s face. He reached out and restrained Roag’s hand. ‘Indeed, you will not. God will decide the time.’

Roag removed his slender fingers from the dagger and said nothing more.

Persons shook his head. ‘I am told young Eaglet and others have risen every midnight these two weeks past, to scourge themselves with the discipline in front of the Blessed Sacrament. They must be commended for such diligence in the mortification of the flesh, but Eaglet did not know when to stop. Why would he not stop? He has lost so much blood.’ Persons suddenly steeled himself and touched the dying man’s hand, one of the few parts of the body that still looked human. He turned to Father Chamberlain, who was acting as nurse. ‘Has extreme unction been given?’

‘Yes, Father.’

Persons walked across the room and picked up a heavy iron brace, studded with short spikes designed to dig into the flesh and keep wounds open, however rotten they became.

‘He wore this, Mr Roag. The Lord only knows where he obtained it. We must all pray for his soul. He is a very brave young man. You know, when he first came here I doubted his faith, but he has proved me wrong.’ Persons made the sign of the cross over the forehead and face of the young man in the cot, then turned away. ‘Come, Mr Roag, let us go to my office.’

The room was austere. Nothing but a table, chairs and papers. Its only ornament was a gilded cross on the wall. A shaft of late sunlight lit the thin arm muscles of the crucified Christ.

‘Is everything ready?’ Persons asked. ‘The ships arranged, the money all in place, your men trained?’

Roag had a youthful smile that would win over maidens and emperors with its easy charm. In his forty-third year, he could pass for a man of thirty, exuding warmth and confidence. ‘All is in place.’ He held up a scroll. ‘I have the authorisation of the casa .’

The document bore the seal of the casa de contratacion — the house of trade — whose absolute seat of power rested within the Alcazar royal palace and whose word was law in all matters of shipping and without whose authority no vessel might leave Spain.