Rory Clements - Holy Spy

Walsingham smiled at his companion. ‘Indeed, Sir Robert. Which brings us to the question of Gilbert Gifford. In many ways, he is the one that worries me most. He is the man who brought us word of Savage and he is the man so trusted by the exiles in Paris and by the French embassy in London that they hand Mary’s letters to him. Gilbert Gifford is at the core of all our plans and yet I feel that none of us truly knows his heart. And so we must keep him content – whatever the cost.’

Shakespeare nodded. He wondered how content the austere Walsingham would be if he knew that Treasury gold was going to pay the extortionate fees of a pair of whores. As the Smith sisters’ soft, unblemished bodies amid the tangle of white linen sheets came to mind, they dissolved into another bedroom, long ago. He saw before him a candlelit chamber and the soft curves of Kat Whetstone. Would he really meet her again this day? The prospect was at once intoxicating and too painful to bear.

From somewhere in the distance, outside this small, stuffy room, he heard the rumble of thunder.

Severin Tort arrived with the tolling of the noonday bells. The sky was dark and the rain was starting. As Shakespeare pulled open the solid oak door lightning dispersed the gloom, followed almost immediately by a rolling cannon-roar of thunder.

‘Good day, Mr Tort. I would invite you in to wait out the storm, but I fear I do not have time for such a delay. How far is our journey?’

‘Shoreditch, close to the Curtain playhouse. No more than two miles from here.’

‘Then let us ride and pray the lightning strikes elsewhere. Follow me to the stables.’

Both men were dressed for the impending downpour: heavy topcoats – too warm for the sultry weather – wide-brimmed hats and riding boots. They rode without talking through the grimy streets northwards to Aldgate, then west along Houndsditch on the outer side of the city wall. At Bishopsgate they turned right, past Bethlehem Hospital along the busy, well-worn street to Shoreditch. The rain was coming hard now and they kicked their horses into a canter, weaving in and out of the wagons and carts that crowded the mud-churned highway in both directions.

Shoreditch, just a mile from London, was very different from its greater neighbour. This, as the austere city aldermen saw it, was a place of sin and debauchery, of drunken vagrants, bare-breasted whores in the street, of filth and bowling alleys and criminals. Worst of all, it housed the twin Gomorrahs of England – the playhouses known as the Theatre and the Curtain. Had it been within their power, the aldermen would have closed them down as dens of iniquity, lairs of drinking and whoredom and every other vice, but the playhouses were outside the city walls and beyond their jurisdiction.

Severin Tort reined in outside a surprisingly fine building in a street of alehouses and tenements near Curtain Close. After the two men had dismounted and tethered their horses, Tort hammered at the door of the main house; two knocks, a pause, then three knocks.

The door opened slowly and a man in a leather jerkin stood before them, a pair of iron scissors in his hand. He looked at the drenched figure of Severin Tort and seemed to recognise him, then studied Shakespeare. He said nothing but took a step to one side to let them in.

Shaking the rain from his hat, Shakespeare entered a workroom. It reminded him of his father’s glovemaking and whittawing shop. The walls were limewashed and there were windows at two sides for light. A table was adorned with the tools of the seamster’s trade: needles, more scissors, threads, candles to work by. In front of it stood a high three-legged stool. Two dresses hung against a wall.

‘Oswald Redd here is a sharer at the Curtain. He has charge of the costumes. Mr Redd, this is John Shakespeare.’

The two men shook hands with a perfunctory nod of the head. Redd was a good-looking man of a similar age to Shakespeare, mid to late twenties, but four or five inches shorter than Shakespeare’s six foot. He was well named, for his hair was copper-coloured, and his skin was tinted by freckles that seemed more joined up than separate. He was clearly anxious.

‘Mr Redd works with Mr Lanman of the Curtain. He is seamster, writer, player and carpenter.’

‘Does he know-’

‘Yes. He is giving her refuge.’ Tort turned to Redd. ‘You have my word, we can trust Mr Shakespeare.’

Redd held up his scissors with the blades parted. ‘Good,’ he said, ‘because I’ll spill his blood with these if he does anything to harm her.’ He turned to Shakespeare. ‘She has told me of you.’

‘I know her of old. Four years ago I met her in Sheffield where her father had the Cutler’s Rest inn.’

‘What was she to you?’

Shakespeare saw the jealousy in the man’s eyes. Bloodshot eyes which were as red as his hair. ‘A friend,’ Shakespeare said. ‘She saved my life.’ He looked more closely at Oswald Redd; was he her lover or one that wished it so?

‘Come up,’ Redd said. ‘It’s not safe down here with these windows unshuttered.’

They climbed up a ladder through a hatchway to the first floor. Redd went first, followed by Shakespeare, then Tort. The floor was divided into two rooms. One was a bedchamber with a narrow bed, brightened by a harvest-yellow coverlet, the other a small parlour with a table and two chairs and a dark-wood coffer with candlesticks. The house had fireplaces at both ends. It was obviously quite recently built; part of the burgeoning construction in the villages surrounding London as increasing numbers of the dispossessed converged on the capital.

Another ladder led up to a second storey. Redd called up quietly through this hatch. ‘Katherine. It is safe.’

Even before he saw her, Shakespeare felt a stab to his heart. He wanted to turn away and take horse back to Seething Lane.

But it was not possible; his feet were fixed to the floor as surely as nails driven into oak.

He heard footfalls on the boards above, then the softer sound of her steps descending the ladder. He saw her small, unshod feet and then her skirts of plainly styled fine linen. Finally she reached the bottom and turned to face him. She was smiling nervously.

‘Kat, I thought I would never see you again.’

‘Had you forgotten me, John?’

‘Are you insane? No one has ever forgotten you.’ He tried to match her smile. ‘This is a strange and difficult reason to meet.’

Kat turned to Tort and Oswald Redd. ‘I would speak with John alone. Perhaps you would take Mr Tort to the alehouse, Oswald.’

Redd seemed reluctant to leave, but Tort took his arm. ‘Come, sir, I will stand you a cup of ale.’

After their footfalls had receded and the front door had banged shut, Kat moved forward into Shakespeare’s arms. It was a tentative move, but once there, she did not draw back from him. He smelt her hair, that fresh scent he knew so well. At last, with a long sigh, she pulled away. Her eyes were uncertain, as though she had lost the confidence that once so marked her. ‘You are wet through, Mr Shakespeare.’

‘Aye, and sweltering. The rain might fall, but the air still has its summer heat.’

‘Let me remove your coat.’

Shakespeare slid out of his dripping topcoat and watched as she hung it on a hook behind a door. ‘That feels a great deal easier,’ he said.

‘What have you heard about me?’

‘Nothing save this hideous news of murder. I have been in France and elsewhere in recent months. I did not even know you were wed.’

‘Come, take a seat with me in the parlour. I will tell you everything.’

Sitting at the dark-stained table, he could not take his eyes from her. Each time she spoke, he saw the beguiling gap in her front teeth. Little about her had changed except her weight. She had put on half a stone, so that her face had filled out and her breasts were heavier. She still frowned when listening or concentrating and her hair was still long and untidy, as though it had been blown in the wind. She still enchanted him. And yet there was a fear in her blue eyes he had never expected to see.