Rory Clements - Revenger

S HAKESPEARE AND CLARKSON MANAGED THE fifteen-mile ride in under three hours. The going was hot through the clogged north London streets, but then a little cooler once out in the open countryside, where they could break into a light canter and enjoy the breeze in their faces. The heat had been oppressive over the past few days and weeks, and the fields and woods they passed were dry and crops were already failing.

A short distance north of Waltham Cross, they turned their mounts left along a well-worn road, then slowed to a trot along the last two hundred yards through a formal avenue of elm and ash, ranged alternately along a raised path, up to the main archway of Theobalds.

The house was magnificent, thought by many to be the finest palace in all England. Lord Burghley, Elizabeth’s most trusted minister throughout her long reign, had started building it twenty-eight years earlier, within the first year of his son Robert’s life. Since then he had spent many years and much silver improving and expanding it into a pile fit to entertain his beloved sovereign.

After grooms took their horses away to be watered and fed, Clarkson led the way into the first of the two great courtyards around which the house was constructed. The whole palace was set within pleasure gardens so extensive and exquisite that one could walk for miles without tiring of the scene.

Sir Robert Cecil was in the Privy Garden to the north of the house, where the heat was less intense and the plants had been watered. Shakespeare was struck at once by how small and neat and still Cecil was; an extraordinary contrast to Essex, the bustling giant of a man he had met a day earlier. He stood, almost statue-like, on the beautifully sheltered lawn, its borders bursting with flowers. The garden was enclosed on three sides by hedges of yew that towered over a man’s head, and on the fourth side by the redbrick and expansively windowed façade of Theobalds itself, a wall richly decorated with trees of fig and apricot and other exotic fruits.

Clarkson bowed low. “Sir Robert, may I introduce Mr. John Shakespeare.”

Cecil smiled quickly, his small mouth immediately reverting to its serious stillness. His face was thin and doleful, his head small like the rest of his body. He had a short beard and mustache, dark and severely trimmed. He was, thought Shakespeare, a man made in miniature, like one of Master Hilliard’s delicate little paintings.

“Good-day, Mr. Shakespeare. Thank you for coming so far,” Cecil said. His clothes were dark, even on a day like this, and his left hand was gauntleted and held square and a foot or so away from his body. On it was perched a peregrine falcon with a hood of soft leather to cover its eyes.

Shakespeare bowed. “It is an honor, Sir Robert.”

“That will be all, Clarkson. Send a footman with wine. Now, Mr. Shakespeare, will you walk with me?”

As Clarkson bowed again and made his way back to the house, Cecil turned and it was only then that Shakespeare noticed the hunch of his shoulder. People often spoke of him as Robin Crookback, and rarely in flattering terms. Shakespeare knew from gossip that he was reckoned by his enemies to be as quiet and venomous as a serpent. His allies, however, saw him as a straight-dealing, hard-working administrator who would not harm you as long as you were never foolish enough to cross him. Certainly, he had the trust of the Queen, just as his father, now ailing with gout, had enjoyed her confidence throughout her years of power.

“Let us take the Mulberry Walk. To my mind, they are the finest of God’s trees. I love the sunshine but even I need some shade in this heat. And the fruit is ripe and sweet.”

From the Privy Garden, they proceeded along a lovely avenue of mulberries, hemmed in on each side by a high wall of mellow red brick. Occasionally, Cecil plucked a rich, dark berry, alternately handing one to Shakespeare, then popping another into his own mouth. “This day I sentenced a man to die, Mr. Shakespeare. Sir John Perrot, of whom I am sure you have heard. I would have saved him, but alas, I was unable.”

Perrot. Of course. Reputed to be the bastard son of Henry VIII, making him Elizabeth’s half-brother. He was cursed with a tongue so loose that in any other man, he would have met the headsman’s axe many years since. He had the roughness and enormous frame of his royal father, but none of his great political power or cunning. It seemed his luck had run out.

“I am afraid he insulted his royal sister one time too many. He called her ‘a base, bastard, pissing kitchen woman.’ ” Cecil smiled grimly. “No one can say words like that about their sovereign lady and hope to survive long.”

“Is that why you have called me here, Sir Robert?”

“No, no, Mr. Shakespeare, by no means. I merely mention it in passing to explain my humor, in case I seem at all melancholic to you. It was not a duty that gave me pleasure.”

“Of course.”

With a gossamer touch of his pale, slender fingers, Cecil stroked the wing feathers of his falcon. “I believe you do not hawk, Mr. Shakespeare. It is a shame, for it is the finest of sports. To watch a peregrine in flight, then see it fall in its stoop on some unsuspecting rabbit or mouse, is a wonder of the world.”

Shakespeare found himself involuntarily raising an inquiring eyebrow. Was he the rabbit and Cecil the falcon? He was certainly surprised that Cecil should have any knowledge about his liking for hawking or otherwise. If he knew such a detail, then what else might he know?

“But you must be impatient to know why I have asked you here. Let me say that I know much about you. I know you have a wife, a child, and a fine school to look to. And nothing, in my estimation, should stand in the way of family and education. My father always brought me up to believe more in the encouragement of children than punishment, and it seems as though you are of a mind with us. I should like to help you. But in the meantime bear with me and hear me out. Come, sit with me beneath this tree.”

They sat together on a wooden bench at the end of the Mulberry Walk, close to the Great Pond, where waterfowl of all kinds cooled themselves and foraged. Being seated brought the two men eye to eye for the first time, for Shakespeare was nine or ten inches taller than his host when they stood.

“Another thing I know about you, Mr. Shakespeare, is that you went to Essex House yesterday and did meet there my lord the Earl of Essex.”

“Indeed, Sir Robert.”

“He had a task for you, a most curious mission to seek out one Eleanor Dare, one of the lost colonists of Roanoke. And you declined his offer because you have a school to run and also, I suspect, for other reasons more political than educational.”

“You have an eye to men’s souls, Sir Robert.”

“No, no, Mr. Shakespeare. There is no sorcery here. Merely careful thinking. I would feel exactly as you do, that there is little to be gained from such a mission and much to be lost. In helping one powerful man, you may cross another. But that brings me to the point of why you are here. I wish you to accept my lord of Essex’s commission.”

So that was what all this was about. Where the strong-armed threats of Charlie McGunn had failed to persuade Shakespeare, Essex used his powerful ally on the Privy Council to intercede and order Shakespeare to do as he was bidden.

“Please, Mr. Shakespeare, wait until I have spoken further before you pass judgment. Let me say at once that I have little interest in Roanoke or the fate of the so-called lost colonists, other than, I suppose, a mild curiosity. Nor is it my intention to twist your arm on behalf of my lord of Essex; he can do that quite well enough on his own. No, Mr. Shakespeare, I have a different task for you altogether, but in order to do it, you must say yes to the Earl, accept his gold, and do his bidding. Only then will you be able to help me and, much more important, our sovereign lady the Queen.”