Rory Clements - The Heretics

‘Is there one near here?’

‘Not that you’d want to let loose on your master.’

Simon Forman was lying on his back, snoring and dreaming. He was always prone to vivid dreams, which he would recall and write down in the morning while he partook of his breakfast meat and milk. In this dream, Janey came to him with Alice Blague, the dean’s lusty wife.

Both were wearing smocks of white linen and black shoes. About their hair, they had coronets of pearls. Both lifted their skirts and demanded he perform his duty as a man with them. Both wished to be first. They told him that if he chose correctly, something very good would occur; if he chose wrongly, then evil would befall him. As he looked from one to the other, trying to decide, their faces elongated like smithy’s hammers and their white smocks turned black and became the handles. Giant fists seized them and began to pound him.

Suddenly he awoke. There was a hammering. Someone was beating at the front door of his house, in the middle of the night.

‘Boy!’ he shouted, but nothing would rouse apprentice Braddedge from his slumbers. Groaning, Forman slid from the bed and tripped downstairs in his nightgown.

‘Who is there?’ he called out through the heavily locked door.

‘Boltfoot Cooper, Mr Shakespeare’s servant.’

Cooper? Forman tensed at the name. Jane Cooper’s husband. Had Cooper found out that his wife had been here? Did he plan violent retribution?

‘What do you want, Mr Cooper? You have woken me. It is exceeding late at night, sir.’

‘In God’s name let me in and I will tell you!’

‘Nothing untoward happened, I will swear as much on the Bible.’

‘What? Open the door or I will break it down. My master is badly injured. He needs you.’

Forman scratched his balls and ran his fingers through his tangled hair, then, steeling himself for possible onslaught, opened the door. A squat, vaguely familiar man stood before him, speckled with blood and dust.

‘Come in, Mr Cooper. You had better tell me what this is about.’

‘I will tell you while you clothe yourself. There is no time to lose.’

They rode together through the night. A half-moon in a cloudless sky lit their way along the well-worn track through the fields towards the wealthy parishes of Clapham and Tooting. Forman had explained to Cooper that he might not be the right man, that he had no experience of surgery or wounds.

‘You’re all there is, so you are coming with me,’ Boltfoot had replied.

Forman accepted the order and carefully packed a bag of everything he believed he might need. In truth, he felt nervous, but excited. Usually people came to him with commonplace complaints like gout, difficult pregnancies, melancholia and afflictions of the skin. At the worst, they might consult him about the palsy. Often they begged charts to know the chances of a marriage succeeding or love philtres to help gain a suitor’s interest. But no one had ever called him out to attend a badly injured man.

Dawn was still some way off by the time they arrived. The house was in darkness. That had been Boltfoot’s suggestion. If anyone came looking for Sloth or the girl, they would head straight for a house where the lights burnt.

Boltfoot wondered, not for the first time, about Paul Hooft’s part in all this. The Dutchman said he had come to London looking for John Shakespeare, to press his case once more for subsidies to drain the fens. He had gone to his house in Dowgate and had seen him being attacked. Unsure what to do, he had followed the assailants out into the countryside to an old church. Unarmed and unused to the area, he had returned to London to seek help and had found Boltfoot. He did not explain how.

The tale did not ring true, but that did not concern Boltfoot for the present. He had fetched weapons for Hooft and had ridden with him to the church. All discrepancies in the Dutchman’s story would be a matter for Mr Shakespeare to investigate when he had recovered. For the moment, Boltfoot was simply glad that Hooft had come to him with the information concerning Mr Shakespeare’s abduction.

‘Come in, come in,’ the farmer’s wife said in a low voice to Boltfoot and Forman. ‘I would beseech you to be as quiet as possible.’

‘Is he still alive?’

She nodded with a sombre smile. ‘His breathing is more regular. He has lost much blood and his pulse is weak. I have fed him sips of water as he would take them and I have bandaged him as well as I could. But I have never seen a man in such a state, sir.’

‘Take me to him,’ Forman said.

As the physician followed the woman, a widow, through to her chamber, Boltfoot hung back with Hooft. ‘What of our captives?’

‘I have bound them tight and gagged them so they do not cry out.’

‘Has anyone been to the church, to your knowledge?’

Hooft lowered his voice. ‘I heard a horse and went over in that direction, as silently as I could. I saw a lantern light so I did not go too close. Whoever it was did not stay long.’

‘How many?’

‘One horseman. He let the mastiff loose. I think he was hoping it would lead him to his confederates and I confess I was terrified it would come straight for me, but it ran off into the woods and did not return. The horseman tried to follow it, but then gave up and went back to the church. He waited there ten minutes or so and finally rode off. I have never held a pistol so tight, Mr Cooper, fearing he would come here.’

‘Did you see his face?’

‘No. He was too far away.’

‘Which way did he go?’

‘It seemed south, but I am not familiar with this land, so I could not say that for certain.’ As if reading Boltfoot’s thoughts, he added, ‘The mistress of the house has put out beer and some food for us in the kitchen.’

Boltfoot smiled. Yes, beer would be most welcome.

As he followed Hooft through to the kitchen, he wondered again about Simon Forman. Nothing untoward happened , he had said. What did he mean by that? Well, it was of no import. Beer and a pipe of tobacco were the vital things right now. And then, when the sun came up, they would transport Sloth and Miss Eastley to Newgate. But what most concerned Boltfoot was the intelligence he needed to impart to Mr Shakespeare: the connection between Ovid Sloth and Mr Henslowe at the Rose playhouse. He needed to tell him what he had seen, and quickly.

In Regis Roag’s head, the words of Richard of Gloucester spun around like the sails on a mill. I can smile and murder while I smile . What had happened? The church floor by the chair was coated in gore and yet there was no sign of them. Had Beatrice and Sloth been disturbed in their work? Had they fled with their captive? If so, where? Or worse, had they been discovered?

He was halfway to Nonsuch when he reined in his horse; he had to go back to the church. He should have looked close by. There must be a house or a barn in the vicinity. He wheeled the horse’s head around and set off.

Helped by the bright half-moon, the ride took him an hour. Tethering the horse at the church, he took another look around and examined the ropes that had been left around the chair. The ends had been cut, not untied. Why would Beatrice or Sloth have done such a thing? And why had they not taken the dog? This had to be the work of someone else.

He walked out of the church and gazed into the silvery gloom. In the distance he saw the outline of some buildings, probably a farmhouse and barns. When he was here before, he hadn’t noticed them. But now, the roofs were visible against the sky.

Leaving the horse, he walked at a steady pace across the fields. As he drew near, he saw that the farmhouse was in darkness. He moved on, then stopped. Was that the flicker of a candle against a window? For a moment it was there, then it was gone. Had it been his imagination or some reflection on the leaded pane of the window? No, it was a candle.