‘I don’t want your knife.’
‘Dreams! Perhaps you will converse with your winged angels next – like Dr Dee. I am surprised and not a little disturbed that you should ask me such things. Do you think I am some sort of spy? Or perhaps you think me a fugitive from justice and would have me returned to the Fleet.’
‘I know not, but I would like an answer nonetheless.’ He looked to his other companion, Robert Gage. ‘We would like an answer. Why did you serve but half your sentence?’
‘And all for a dream.’ Slide shook his head as though this conversation was altogether too tedious ‘Very well. If you must. I was released early at the archbishop’s own request. I am told he felt my continued presence in gaol only served to prolong the mockery and derision aimed at his person. He wished the whole thing forgotten as quickly as possible.’ Slide snorted with laughter. ‘A vain hope! Men will make merry at the expense of the dirty Archbishop of York and the landlord’s bawdy wife for many generations to come. Does that satisfy you, Captain Fortescue? May I return to my beef while it yet has some warmth to it?’
He met Ballard’s eye. It was a dark, scowling thing. He was in his late thirties, mad-eyed and dark-bearded, wearing an extravagant cape laced with gold, and a satin doublet with slashes; attire most uncommon here in the east Midlands. At his side, on the bench, was a hat adorned with silver buttons. He wore the guise of a rich and generous captain-of-war with assurance, as though born to the role; the very image of a soldier of fortune. Why, Slide wondered, had such a man – with a taste for assassination and insurrection – not joined a real army rather than the priesthood? Would he not have preferred the blood and thunder of a true man-at-arms to the sneaking and slithering of the underground clergy?
Slide looked away, but was still aware of Ballard’s eyes boring in to him. He ignored them, ate his beef greedily and tossed back his strong beer. What a pleasure it would be to observe this priest’s blood washing into the Tyburn soil.
‘Is that true?’ Ballard pressed.
Slide sighed. ‘Yes, for pity’s sake. Otherwise I would not be here, but manacled in my cold cell.’
Ballard attempted a smile, but it was more like a grimace. ‘Forgive me. These checks and disappointments . . . I begin to see enemies in the shadows.’
‘Well I am not your enemy. Now eat your beef and allow me the same courtesy.’ Harry Slide had no more time for this. He had spotted a face across the taproom floor, studying him closely. Was it someone from the past when he lived and operated in these parts? Slide always remembered a face, but in this case he was uncertain. Only one thing for it: find out.
Shakespeare rode to meet Goodfellow Savage at Barnard’s Inn. The street here at Holborn Bars was a scene of chaos, with building work proceeding on Staple Inn next door to Barnard’s. The new inn was designed as an extension to Gray’s and the work was disrupting the movement of livestock and wagons. A delivery of timber had just been unloaded and was strewn across the highway. Shakespeare had to pick his way over piles of oak.
Savage was at his studies, his head bent so low that his eyes were scarce three inches from the paper he read. He had his hands over his ears to blank out the sounds of hammering and shouting from the nearby building site.
Shakespeare clapped his hands. ‘Come, Goodfellow,’ he shouted. ‘Let us remove ourselves from this din.’
Putting down his quill, Savage rubbed his tired eyes and blinked. ‘They do their damnable work from dawn until dusk. There is as much noise here as on the field of battle.’
‘Let us dine together. I will pay the reckoning.’
Savage stood up from his table and stretched his arms so that he touched the ceiling. ‘Free food and ale? You are most persuasive, John Shakespeare.’
‘Good.’
Shakespeare looked about the cheerless room where Savage lived, slept and worked with his three fellow lodgers, including Dominic de Warre. Apart from the table there was a basin and four poor beds of straw, but today Savage was alone, red-eyed from his long hours of study.
Together, they walked out into the warm evening air and headed east, away from Holborn Bars towards the Silver Grayling. As they passed Hern’s Rents, Savage stopped and looked up at the six-storey tenement. ‘Shall we call out Anthony Babington?’
He wanted Savage to himself. ‘Another time. Let us talk of women, wine and the hunt. There are days when a man needs nothing more serious than the fellowship of a good friend and a jug of good beer.’
‘I hoped you would say that. He pushes me incessantly.’
‘Pushes you? In what way?’
For a moment it seemed to Shakespeare that Savage was about to reveal his murderous vow, but he merely smiled. ‘You know – the way he pushes us all. Do you think it will ever happen, this rising?’
‘One must hope. There is much to plan, many preparations to be made. God will surely show us the way, but we must do our part, too. He gave us free will so that we might choose to follow his path or take the other way. The brave man’s path – or the coward’s way-’ Shakespeare stopped short.
Savage stood rigid, his head held high, his long soldier’s beard thrust forward, like a statue, frozen in stone, eyes wide open and staring.
‘Goodfellow – is all well with you?’
He shook himself and gasped for air. ‘I . . . forgive me, John.’
‘What is it?’
‘I saw the cross before my eyes. I saw Christ’s blood, flowing like molten gold from his wounds. His mouth did not move but I heard his words. He was talking to me.’ Another deep gulp of air. Savage closed his eyes.
‘Goodfellow?’
‘I think it was a sign.’
Shakespeare placed a comforting hand on his companion’s arm.
‘John, I am sore troubled. What do you believe the Church’s teaching to be on the matter of taking one life to save a nation’s soul?’
‘You mean assassination?’ Shakespeare barely whispered the word. His heart was pounding. He did not wish to be told this secret. The fact that he had learnt of Savage’s vow from Gifford rather than from his own lips somehow made it distant and he had always secretly hoped to find some way to save him. But if he were to have this man’s confidence, it would be altogether different. How could he keep such a secret when it flew against all that he believed in? Oh that my ears should fill up with mortar and that deafness should suddenly take me.
And yet this was his work: the defence of Queen and realm. His country before his friends. He chose his reply with care. ‘I have heard it said that if such an act is carried out for God, and not for man, then there will be rejoicing in heaven.’
‘Regnans in Excelsis seemed to make it clear, but since its suspension . . . How can a man know where he stands?’
Shakespeare nodded his head gravely. Regnans in Excelsis. This proclamation of Pope Pius V in 1570 excommunicating Elizabeth had, in essence, ordered her subjects to rise up against her or risk excommunication themselves. It had supposedly been suspended in 1580, but all that had happened was that the people of England were given freedom to obey her orders to save their skins – all the while waiting, hoping, praying and scheming for her death and the destruction of her regime.
‘Do you think it still gives a man freedom to-’
‘I think you have said too much, Goodfellow.’
Savage was not to be stopped. ‘You are the only man in England whose opinion I trust and respect, John Shakespeare. If I cannot talk with you, then I am alone.’
Shakespeare put his finger to his lips. ‘Say nothing.’ The street was busy, as always, but they were cocooned in their own private world. Their voices were low. It was safer here than in the tavern. The Silver Grayling could wait.
And then it came out, unstoppable like a flood. ‘I have made a vow to kill her. I made it in church, on my knees, before the cross, before God himself. It is a vow I cannot escape – and yet I cannot bring myself . . .’ Savage seemed to struggle for breath again. Then he pulled out his sword and held it by the hilt in his huge hands. ‘See how my hands shake? Never in the heat of battle did they quiver so. This thought, this unbreakable pledge, turns me to jelly.’