Rory Clements: Martyr

Shakespeare hesitated. Everything he knew of Drake by repute suggested he would not need anyone’s help to survive. He had been fighting and defeating Spanish fleets for nigh on twenty years now. Surely Drake can look after himself, he said at last.

Can he, John? At sea, yes, of course. But on land, in the teeming shipyards, full of foreigners of every hue and creed? Who will spot one man with an arquebus or crossbow among the hundreds at work? Drake needs protection-and you will provide it.

Shakespeare ran a finger around his ruff He felt hot, despite the lack of warmth in this cheerless room. And Lady Blanche Howard?

And Lady Blanche. And all your other duties. We are all stretched like bowstrings. That is the way it is. Anyway, it seems to me you have the perfect servant to assign to Drake-your former sailor, Mr. Boltfoot Cooper. I believe he already knows Sir Francis rather well.

Shakespeare almost laughed. There was nothing to be gained from arguing. Walsingham must know that Boltfoot had parted on bad terms with Drake, having protested that he had been cheated of his fair share of the colossal plunder taken aboard the Golden Hind from the Spanish treasure ship Cacafuego. He had also said that after three years at sea in Drake’s company he would never board a ship again and certainly not one of Drake’s. No, Boltfoot would not be happy to be in the Dragon’s company once more.

Night had come and gone when Rose Downie was startled awake. Topcliffe was standing over her, prodding at her with his blackthorn. She scrabbled to her feet, heart pounding. Her hands were stiff with cold, clutching the baby. The child chose that moment to wail; its piercing, monotonous cry, like the howl of a cat, sent shivers down her spine, but Topcliffe merely smiled.

Is it baptized in our church? he asked, and touched its strange face, with its curious, un-human eyes.

Rose Downie felt fear in her heart but she needed this man. Her friend had told her that he knew everything about everyone in the city, that he would help her as he had helped others, but that he would demand much in return. My own baby was baptized, sir, by the Bishop of London himself, but this is not my baby.

Then you have stolen this one.

No, sir, mine has been stolen. This… creature… was left in its place.

Let me see its face by the light. Topcliffe bent down toward the face of the child in the gloom. He pulled back the swaddling bands from its head and looked intently at it. The child’s face was small and round, its eyes spaced widely. Too widely. There seemed to be no chin to speak of and the ears were curiously low. Any mother, Topcliffe thought, would want to disown such a thing. Come in with me. My boy Nicholas tells me you have had a long vigil here. I’ll beat his arse raw for leaving you out in weather like this.

He pushed back the oak door to his home. Rose hesitated, fearing to enter. The hallway was lit by the flame from a candle, which cast strange shadows in the breeze from the open door. She stepped forward into the unholy gloom.

On a dark-stained coffer lay a large gilt-bound book, which, though she could not read, she recognized as a Bible. Topcliffe took Rose Downie’s right hand from the baby and held it down hard on the book, as if to ensure there was solid contact. Do you swear by Almighty God that the baby you are holding is not yours?

Rose felt colder inside the house than outside in the winter wind. There were strange smells in this place; it held the chill and smell of a slaughterhouse. I do swear, sir; it is not my baby. My baby, William Edmund Downie, has been taken from me. Please help me, sir. I believe that only you can help.

Where is your husband, Mistress Downie?

He died, sir. He was out with the trainband at Mile End Green by Clement’s Inn after church a month past, and his hagbut did explode.

Topcliffe touched her arm with seeming compassion. His hand remained there, keeping her close to him. I am sorry to hear that, Mistress Downie. England has need of such men. Such a thing should not befall a pretty wife.

Tears welled up in Rose’s eyes at the memory but she refused to weep. She had been heavy with child and he was late home from practicing firing his arquebus and wielding his pike. He, like thousands of other good men, had been doing his duty, she knew, training week after week out in the open countryside or within the brick walls of Artillery Yard. He had volunteered himself for service as part of the Carpenters Company contingent. It was men like her husband who would stop the Spaniard. That day, she had waited for him on the road, but instead of his jaunty step and broad smile coming toward her, she saw six other members of the trainband approaching, pulling a handcart with what, at first, she took to be a dead animal. Then she saw that it was his bloody remains and she collapsed fainting. Later, they told her his arquebus had misfired and exploded in pieces, ripping open his throat. They had been wed less than a year, by the Bishop who would later baptize their child. Her husband’s name was Edmund and she called him Mund. He was such a fine man, a yeoman carpenter with shoulders as wide as his smile. On the day of their wedding, they had scarcely been able to wait for the Bishop to give his blessing before retiring to their room to tear the clothes from each other’s backs. When Mund died, she felt that her life was over. She hungered each night for his body over hers. But instead of the joy of him, she had nothing but tears. And then the baby came a week after his death and she began to find a little life again. He was a boy and he was perfect in every way. His name was William Edmund, but she called him Mund, like his father. He would be the new man in her life.

Come further into my home, Topcliffe said, his arm moving around her shoulder, and have a draft of beer, for you must have a thirst to slake.

If she had been asked to tread through the portals of hell, she could not have been more scared, yet she could not say no to this man. She knew his repute as a brute, but she also knew that he had power. Her friend Ellie May from the market had told her she must go to him, for he was reputed to know all there was to know in London; he could see into souls and was privy to dark secrets that no one else could know, Ellie had told her.

In his teeth, stained mottled amber, Topcliffe clenched a long wooden stick, which he drew on every so often, and then blew out smoke. She looked at it astonished, as if he were breathing sulfur from the fires of Satan, for she had never seen such a thing. He laughed at her bewilderment. It is a pipe of sotweed, from the New World. He called in a servant to bring drink, then another to stoke the fire in the hearth and-as the man crouched to the grate with bellows and logs-cursed him for letting it go so low.

He asked her questions. How she survived, where she lived. She told him she was a malkin-a kitchen drudge-in the buttery of a great lady. She had left service when she married Edmund, but on his death she had been received back into the household in her old serving job.

As she talked, Topcliffe smiled at her with his hard, dark teeth. Eventually he put down the sotweed pipe. Well, Rose, I should like to help you if I can. We must find the mother of this changeling you have brought us.

Again he put his arm around Rose Downie’s shoulders, drawing her to him. We must look after Her Majesty’s subjects, must we not, especially the widow of a fine young man who died for his sovereign. Tell me, Rose, where was your baby stolen?

She recalled the day precisely. It was a week past, when the child was just twelve days old. She had gone to the market for cheeses and salt pork. Her son was swaddled and she held him in her arms. But there was a disagreement with the stallholder and she had put the baby down for just a short moment because her arms were full of groceries and she was counting out the farthings to pay for them. The argument became heated and the short moment of leaving little Mund in a basket by the stall became a minute or two. She was still angry when she went to pick him up, but then her anger turned to horror, for her baby was no longer there. In his place was this monster, this creature, this Devil’s spawn.