Rory Clements - Revenger

A footman arrived with a flagon of wine and poured two glasses. Shakespeare was glad of the refreshment; his head was befuddled by the heat and the extraordinary request from Cecil. Was he asking him to spy on Essex?

“Mr. Shakespeare, it is my nature to think the best of people where I may and speak no ill of any man or woman. But in these difficult circumstances, I will speak plainly to you because I think I know you to be trustworthy. The things I am about to tell you are state secrets. You will repeat them to no one. Not even to your wife.”

Shakespeare was not at all sure that he wished to hear any state secrets, but he merely nodded. Cecil was not going to be stopped now.

“Mr. Shakespeare, I fear there is a plot against the Queen…” Cecil spoke the words slowly and clearly so that they should not be misunderstood. He paused to gaze a few moments at Shakespeare, as if awaiting some sort of reaction. When none was forthcoming, he continued, “… with the aim of proclaiming Essex as King of England in her place.”

T HE CLATTER OF HOOVES through the dusty streets was a common sound-but the progress of the great lady through the thoroughfares of London drew all eyes and stopped all commerce. She sat alone, majestic, in a new coach of gold, resplendent with a beplumed canopy. Few had ever seen its like, and all stood in wonder and awe, convinced it must be carrying the Queen herself. It was drawn by four white stallions, all proudly harnessed with feathers and shields, their forelegs trotting high and in time.

Ahead of the carriage, on black horses, rode two outriders in white silk livery. With swords drawn and held vertical in front of them, they cleared the streets of laggardly carters and draymen.

Eastward along Lombard Street they made their stately journey, past the church of St. Dionis and into Fen Church Street. Finally, the outriders turned right into Fylpot Lane. The chief coachman, realizing the carriage would never fit into such a narrow street, crowded as it was with untended wagons between corbeled houses, tugged at the long reins and pulled the four white steeds to a stamping, noisy halt.

The man beside the coachman got down from his perch and opened the carriage door, bowing low with a sweep of his cape. He was a strong-muscled man of African features, with black skin that matched his employer’s eyes. “I fear we can go no further to Dr. Forman’s house, my lady,” he said.

She raised the tip of her beautiful nose and smiled distantly, as she had been taught always to smile at those of lower rank. “Well, I shall have to walk, then, Henry. If it is not too far.”

With the assistance of her servant, who held his head high and proud, she stepped down from her carriage and looked about her. They were in the beating heart of London, the merchants’ quarter whence all wealth emanated, yet to her it all seemed small and dirty and constrained, so used was she to the palaces of the aristocracy, especially her own great homes of Wanstead, Essex House, Leighs, and Chartley in Staffordshire.

In her jewel-encrusted shoes of white kid, she picked her way carefully through the dung and the dust along the narrow confines of Fylpot Street. Bays of shops pushed out into the road and, above her, the jettied chambers of fine houses blanked out much of the light. To her nose, she held a pomander of lavender and rose.

“Which house is it, Henry?”

“I believe it is the next door there, my lady. Stone House.”

She smiled her condescending smile once again. She had met the celebrated Dr. Forman on occasion but never, until now, had cause to use his services and certainly not visit his house. His magic tricks and bedtime services were, however, famed among her friends, the ladies of the royal court. She nodded and the coachman beat with the pommel of his whip at the oaken door.

I NSIDE THE HOUSE, Simon Forman had recently finished a late lunch and was enjoying his third swiving of the day with his new mistress, Annis Noke. He liked to call this pleasant occupation a halek , for he kept a record of his daily doings, his alchemy and his experimentations, and wrote in cipher so that none should steal his secrets or ideas. The word halek , which he had invented, seemed as good a code for intercourse as any and appeared many times in his diaries.

Above him, her eyes closed in bliss, Mistress Noke suddenly screamed in ecstasy and he chose that moment to reach his own heady pitch of excitement. She collapsed, shuddering, onto his hair-matted chest and kissed his yellow-red beard and freckled face all over. Panting heavily, she clenched her sweat-glistening thighs about his waist and shuddered once more, grinding her plump body down onto him. She smiled at him, satisfied in a way she had only ever found in this bed, with this strange, squat, and hairy man. For his part, he knew that this giving of pleasure was a gift to him from God, and one he was happy to dispense liberally to any woman who cared to know what heaven was like without dying.

There was a hammering at the door. With a last kiss, he disengaged himself from Mistress Noke, swung his legs off the bed, scratched his member and his balls, and stood up. The infernal sores were still there; the herbal tincture he had devised for the clap was not working. Still scratching, he ambled to the window, then pressed his naked body against the glass panes to get a better view of the street below. A maid in the house on the other side of Fylpot Lane chose just that moment to look up and got a clear view of his diminishing-but still extraordinarily well-sized-tumescence. Forman waved to her cheerily and she met his eye with an immodest gaze. She would make a pleasant repast one day soon. He looked away from her and his eyes turned down to the street below, where he saw a neatly coiffed head of fair, wavy hair that he recognized instantly. “God’s teeth, it’s the She-wolf’s daughter!” he said. “And she has a blackamoor with her. What’s she doing here? Get yourself dressed, Mistress Noke.”

Hurriedly grabbing a shirt and breeches, he stumbled downstairs to the door, fastening hooks and ties as he went. As he opened the door with a disheveled flourish, she swept past him into his antechamber. She stood for a moment looking about her. Lady Penelope Rich. The most beautiful young woman in England; wife to the fabulously wealthy Robert, third Lord Rich; sister to the great Earl of Essex; daughter to Lettice Knollys; stepdaughter to the great Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester; believed by many to be great-granddaughter to Henry VIII by Anne Boleyn’s sister Mary.

“Well, Dr. Forman,” she said at last. “I seem to have found you quite déshabillé , if not to say in flagrante delicto. ”

He bowed low to her, then looked nervously at her servant. “A thousand pardons, my lady. I was merely couching a hogshead away from the afternoon sun. I had not expected you.”

“Couching a hogshead, Dr. Forman?”

“A little afternoon sleep, my lady.”

“Ah. Well, no, of course you were not expecting me, for that would have spoiled the surprise. I wished to see how you lived, Dr. Forman. And I now know. I have certain friends, ladies of breeding, who speak very highly of your… prowess.”

“My lady?”

“But that is not why I am here, Dr. Forman. I am here because I wish you to prepare a chart for me.”

“Ah, charts, my lady,” Forman said warily in his deep Wiltshire drawl. “Charts are dangerous things. Perhaps some refreshment would be in order while we discuss the matter.” He clapped his hands. “Mistress Noke, would you come, please. We have an honored guest.”