Robert Harris: Will Shakespeare and the Pirate’s Fire

For Jill, who told me many years ago I was going to write this book.

Cover Page

Title Page Will Shakespeare and the Pirate’s Fire Robert J. Harris

Dedication For Jill, who told me many years ago I was going to write this book.

1 The Hunters Hunted

2 Lord Strange’s Men

3 The King Must Die

4 A Handful of Luck

5 Pilgrims in the Storm

6 The House of Doctor Dee

7 The Scarab

8 Pluto and Proserpina

9 The Goblin Court

10 The Mermaid

11 The Black Stone

12 Curtain Saturday

13 The Downfall of Adonis

14 The Game is Up

15 At the Sign of the Angel

16 Meta Incognita

17 Fallen on Hard Times

18 Crossed Swords

19 Fair Foes

20 A Prisoner of Spain

21 The Reluctant Pirate

22 A Hare in a Maze

23 A Pretty Piece of Thieving

24 Shooting the Bridge

25 Proof Positive

26 The Protector of England

27 Darkness and Light

28 Inconstant Allies

29 The Stage is Set

30 Deus Ex Machina

31 The Brimstone Circle

32 The Reign of Mercy

Afterword

Acknowledgements

Also by Robert J Harris

Copyright

About the Publisher

“I’d give a lot for a good horse right now,” panted Will Shakespeare, leaning heavily against the trunk of a looming oak tree. He wiped some sweat from his brow with the cuff of his jerkin and sucked in the sharp February air.

They had been running so hard his friend Hamnet could hardly summon the breath to speak. “I’d settle for a hole in the ground,” he gasped, “and some branches to cover ourselves with.”

“Look how they’re beating the bushes,” Will pointed out. “It’ll take more than a few twigs to save us.”

Hamnet poked his head out for a peek. Will caught the back of his jerkin and yanked him down. “Stay down, you clodpole! They’ll see you!”

“You wouldn’t think they’d be so stirred up over a few rabbits,” sighed Hamnet. “Maybe we should have just picked some berries and gone home.”

Hamnet Sadler was only a few months younger than Will and they had been friends for the entire fourteen years they had been growing up in Stratford. They had taken more than a few chances together, but if they were convicted of poaching a public whipping was the lightest sentence they could expect.

They both hugged the tree’s shadow as they spied on Sir Thomas Lucy’s men. There were a dozen of them, poking in the bushes with hunting spears, determined to flush out the young poachers. They were a tough, hard crew, the sort who could be depended on to carry out any order, no matter how cruel, as long as they were paid for the deed.

The squire himself perched uneasily astride his fat, grey gelding. He surveyed the ground and yapped out his orders. “There, Cobb, there!” he shrilled. “I swear by God I saw something move among those brambles.”

“Just a bird, sir!” Cobb called back.

Will sank back into the shadows. “That nag of his couldn’t outrun Widow Tanner’s donkey,” he said.

“It’s his men will outrun us if he spots us,” said Hamnet. “And they’re a mean lot.”

Will bit his lower lip and looked around. This was a wild, tangled country, too dense and thorny for deer – nothing for a proper nobleman to brag about – but Sir Thomas guarded it like it was the Garden of Eden. Charlecote Warren the locals called it, for it was rich in rabbits, hare and game birds.

Will fingered the bow that hung at his side, thinking of the pair of rabbits and the fat guinea fowl he had bagged. Hamnet had only got a stringy-looking hare, but he was well content with his prize. England’s longbowmen had once made her armies invincible, but in these days of gunpowder the bow had become a poacher’s weapon.

Hamnet shook his head like an old man. “I wish you’d stop getting us into fixes like this, Will. It was bad enough when we were just filching apples.”

“Life will be quiet enough when you’re in the grave,” said Will, giving his friend an encouraging thump on the arm. “Besides, somebody has to goad Old Lousy.”

“Come on, use your eyes!” Sir Thomas Lucy was telling his men. “They can’t have disappeared like vapour!”

“I think I recognised one of them, sir,” said one of the hunters. “John Shakespeare’s boy.”

“Shakespeare!” Lucy pronounced the name as a hateful hiss. “That insolent brogger! He’s been more trouble to me than floods and plague. But if I take his boy up on a poaching charge, that will knock the mischief out of him.”

“Will, they know who you are!” Hamnet exclaimed through gritted teeth.

“He’s just guessing,” said Will. “They weren’t close enough to see our faces. If we can get back to Stratford ahead of them, they won’t be able to prove a thing.”

“And how are we going to do that?” Hamnet asked. “Are you going to conjure up a griffin to carry us on its back?”

“No need for magic,” Will answered. “If we crawl on our bellies through the gorse there, we can make it to the stream without being spotted. Then we can wade through the water till we’re clear of Charlecote.”

“So we’re to be drowned, dirty…and…and…” Hamnet faltered over a final word.

“Desperate,” Will finished for him.

“That’s not what I was trying to say,” Hamnet complained.

“Come on,” urged Will, pulling his friend into the undergrowth beside him. “Desperate men can’t hang around waiting on luck to save their hide.”

Wriggling along on their hands and knees, they pressed through the rough bushes. Again and again they became snagged on thorns and had to carefully ease themselves loose without giving away their position.

All at once the drumming of hooves made them stop dead and press their faces to the earth. The hoof beats came closer and the shadow of a mounted figure passed over them. Hamnet squeezed his eyes tight shut in an effort to ignore the danger, but Will glanced up to see sir Thomas reining in only a few yards away. He could smell the horse’s acrid sweat and hear the breath puffing in its nostrils.

The squire stood up in the stirrups and peered off to the south and west. “Are you sure they came this way? I’ll not be made to look a fool.”

“They came this way as sure as there’s apples,” answered his man Cobb. “That’s not to say they ain’t sneaked past us like adders in the grass.”

“What’s that?” cried a voice.

“Where?” Sir Thomas demanded. “Where?”

“I saw something move, sir! Over there by the rocks!”

Will froze like a statue, but Sir Thomas was not looking in their direction. He spurred his horse into a lumbering canter, waving his men forward.

“Here’s our chance,” said Will, giving Hamnet a sharp nudge. They crawled on their bellies to the bank of the stream, then slid over the edge and into the shallow water.

“Oh, it’s cold enough to freeze your cullions off!” Hamnet moaned.

Will shivered. “It’s only till we get well out of sight, Hamnet. Stay down now!”

Crouching so low it made their backs ache, they sloshed along slowly, careful not to attract attention. They had only gone a short way when Hamnet slipped and plunged completely under the water. Will grabbed him under the arms and hauled him up, dripping and coughing.