Rory Clements - The Heretics

The steward bowed and departed.

‘Now then, John, what is it?’

‘It is Lady Lucia Trevail, Sir Robert. Is she in the Privy Chamber?’

‘Why?’

‘Because I have discovered reason to suspect that she was part of the conspiracy against the Queen’s person.’

Cecil put down his quill. ‘Well, she is not here. I know this because Her Royal Majesty was asking after her this evening. She wished to play some hands of primero with her. The Queen was exceeding displeased at her absence.’

‘Thank the Lord. .’

‘John, sit down. I think you had better tell me exactly what you have discovered.’

On the day of the homecoming, Jane immediately set to cleaning the house. Bustling about, she opened the windows, organised the laundry, dusted the floors and put down new rushes. Ursula forsook her stall for the day and helped her with the housework. Little John tagged along, trying to help but merely managing to be disruptive. Boltfoot, meanwhile, hid in the stables with his pipe, cleaning his caliver and oiling his cutlass.

Shakespeare spent some time with Grace and Mary, telling them about Andrew’s new ship, the Defiance , with its figurehead shaped like a lion. He told them, too, of the day the Spanish had landed in Cornwall and how the brave Cornishmen had thrown them back into the sea whence they came. Finally, he tested them on the lessons they had learnt in Cecil’s household and was pleased to discover they had been taught well.

He then told the girls to go and help Jane and Ursula, while he retired to his solar to catch up on reading intercepts and correspondence. More than anything, he longed to have word of young Robert Warner, the intelligencer he had sent incognito to the College of Gregory in Seville, but there was nothing. After a while there was a knock at the door.

‘Come in.’

Jane stepped in with little John at her heels. Shakespeare noted how the boy was blossoming, as was she, back to her old, comely self. He found himself staring at her bosom, which seemed riper and fuller than he could recall in recent months. He looked up at her face. ‘Forgive me. .’

She smiled.

‘Jane, are you-’

She nodded and her hand went instinctively to her belly, though there was nothing showing as yet.

‘That is good news. I am delighted for you both.’

‘I haven’t told Boltfoot yet.’

‘Well, I won’t say a word.’ Shakespeare turned back to his paperwork.

‘I do believe that Dr Forman’s potions have helped. He has made me believe the baby will come to term.’

Shakespeare had to laugh. ‘I am sure Boltfoot had some part to play in your good fortune. In the meantime, I will pray for you.’

‘But he also said that I would experience a death.’

‘I think it the nature of astrologers that as many of their predictions are in error as correct. God alone is without fault.’

Jane hastily delved into her apron pocket. ‘But it was not about me that I came to you, master. It was for this.’

He looked up and saw that she was holding a large needle.

‘A sailmaker?’

‘I found it while I was changing your bedding, master. It was beneath the cushions, pinned into the mattress.’

She put the needle down on the table in front of him.

He picked it up and turned it in his fingers. In the wrong hands it was a diabolical implement, as his perforated body testified. Had Lucia Trevail and Beatrice Eastley used this to kill Garrick Loake when they suspected he was about to betray their approach to him? Or perhaps it was another needle, just like it.

The thought of Beatrice and Lucia, killing together, both soaked in blood, sent a shiver to his heart. Poor Loake, deep in debt and a Catholic: he must have seemed a certain recruit to their cause. And, as Shakespeare now knew from his inquiries into Loake’s family connections, he would have been recommended to the conspirators highly, for he had a cousin at Wisbech Castle: a young lay brother by the name of Gavin Caldor, connected to the Theatre just as Loake had been. The nervous young man who had pissed himself with fear at the thought of his own torture and death — surely that callow, terrified youth could not have had the diabolical brilliance to devise such a plot, unless he was a play-actor of uncommon gifts? Yet he was certainly involved.

That was what Anthony Friday had been trying to tell him with his scratched message: They are cousins .

‘Does the needle mean something to you, master?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

Had Lucia meant to kill him before changing her mind? Was it a warning, or merely a little farewell gift?

‘It is something I mislaid. A thing of no value. Thank you, Jane.’

He put it to one side.

There had been no word of Lucia Trevail. None of her friends from the School of Day had any idea where she might be, and all had been utterly shocked and bewildered by the secret side of her that they had never known.

‘I simply cannot believe that Lucia had anything to do with those devilish people,’ Lady Susan, the Countess of Kent, had told him.

‘Which of you had the idea of putting on the masque for the Queen?’

The countess had thought for a moment. ‘Why, yes, that was Lucia’s notion.’

‘And which of you commissioned Mr Sloth to organise it?’

‘Well, I am sure that must have been Lucia, too.’

Shakespeare had sighed and said no more. Had Father Weston sent Beatrice to Lucia when she fled Wisbech? It seemed mighty probable. They had been partners in treason all along. Lucia had brought her into Lady Susan’s circle, believing she would be protected from suspicion there; perhaps she had even introduced her to Regis Roag.

And then Lucia and Beatrice had travelled down to Cornwall together to await the arrival of Roag and his men, and to assist them in the initial stages of their mission. But something had happened to unsettle them before they reached Trevail Hall, and they had decided to part and meet again later. Perhaps someone got word to them that Shakespeare was on their trail with orders to apprehend Beatrice. Perhaps one of Lucia’s servants had been watching him? Was it perhaps the same servant who told them later that Ovid Sloth was to be taken by sea to Falmouth? This was all surmise, but it made sense.

The ladies of the School of Day would come to their own conclusions about Lucia. Cecil had raised a hue and cry, ordering searchers and pursuivants to all her properties and any known haunts. The ports had been alerted. Word had been sent post-haste to Godolphin in Cornwall to seize her and bring her to London, should she arrive at Trevail Hall, but Shakespeare knew she would not be found.

He would never know the truth about Lucia and Roag. Something told him they had been lovers, but, again, this was nothing more than instinct and surmise.

Jane was leaving the room. He called her back.

‘I will be away for a few days, but when I return, we will have a feast. There will be nine of us — ten including little John. This includes you, Jane. You are to commission the Swan Inn to provide food and servants — and then leave the work to them. All the work. You are to do nothing towards it, is that understood?’

‘Yes, master.’

‘I want good Gascon wine and fresh beer. There are to be three roasts — a sirloin of beef, a turkey cock and a leg of mutton. There will be salads, sweetmeats, fruit pies and syllabubs. If they can manage a subtlety of jelly, I would like that, too. In the shape of a lion as a tribute to Andrew and his ship. And, remember, their best potboys will serve us. Tell them they will be well paid, so take no disobedience from them. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, master.’