By now bystanders were starting to look. Shakespeare’s hand tightened on Savage’s arm and he pulled him into a narrow alleyway. ‘You will get us both hanged if you speak so publicly!’ he hissed.
‘I had to tell you, John.’
‘Why are you sacrificing your life? What made you promise this?’
‘We are all risking our lives – you included, John Shakespeare.’
‘But your death is certain.’
Savage’s smile was the saddest thing Shakespeare had ever seen. ‘My life is already done,’ he said quietly. ‘I surrendered it to God on the fields of Flanders. It was only His will that I should survive when others died in battle. He spared me for this greater purpose.’
Who had told him that? Was it Gilbert Gifford, or others at the seminary in Rheims? There were many men of God who were happy to tell others that the Lord wished them to sacrifice their lives, without once hazarding their own.
‘Who else knows of this?’
‘Babington, Gilbert Gifford, two fathers in Rheims, Ballard
– Captain Fortescue, that is.’
‘God’s blood, Goodfellow! How do you know you can trust these men? You are in so deep.’ Shakespeare groaned. ‘I would rather your lips had been sealed and your tongue cut out than that you should have spoken these words to me, for now when I see you, you are in your winding sheet.’
‘I will never utter your name. You will never be named accessory.’
‘It is your life I am thinking of, not mine.’
‘My day is almost done. But you will live.’
‘Will I? Do you think any man living can keep his mouth closed on the rack?’
‘You are safe. I swear to you, John Shakespeare.’
‘So what will you do now?’
‘My vow is made. I await only word from Rome. They told me at Rheims that it was lawful if done for God’s glory, just as you said. But I must have confirmation from the Holy Father.’
‘And who will bring this word to you?’
‘I await letters from Morgan in Paris. Gifford says he will bring them, elsewise I must go there myself.’
‘And the vision?’
‘It has made me unsure . . . bewildered. What do you think
it meant?’ Shakespeare shook his head. What was to be done? Savage was on a course of self-destruction that no one could prevent. For a few moments they stood looking at each other, then Shakespeare took a grip of himself. ‘I think I had better get you roaring drunk, Goodfellow. Come, let us drink the Silver Grayling dry.’
‘And you are paying?’
‘My purse is full. But I must ask you one more thing. The young fellow you brought to Mane’s . . .’
‘Dominic?’
‘That’s it. Dominic de Warre. You said he was one of us. But what more do you know of him?’
‘He is pleasant enough, but hotheaded. Why, what is your interest?’
‘I know his stepfather, Severin Tort. I had not realised the link between them until I saw him at home. It gave me pause for thought. He is only a boy. You and I are men, Goodfellow. If we risk death, that is our choice. But young Dominic . . .’
Chapter 20
Just before the tide turned, when the race through the stanchions of London Bridge was at its tamest, Boltfoot took a boat downriver from the Custom House water stairs. He had his caliver slung over his back and his cutlass at his belt. He was not going unarmed again. Disembarking at St Katharine’s Dock, a mile downstream from the bridge, he made his way slowly and carefully along the narrow lanes to the Burning Prow. At the end of the street, not fifty yards from the bawdy house, he found a spot in the shade of a tree where he sat down and lit his pipe of tobacco. The smoke was rich and heady and went some way to ease the aches of his beating.
He had a good view of the entrance to the whorehouse, but the evening was still early and business was quiet. A few men came and either stayed to carouse or left with a woman to one of the rooms they used for their work. He was hoping the one called Em would turn up, but by nine o’clock there was no sign of her.
The other whore – Aggy, the scabby, ill-favoured one he had tried to engage in conversation – came out from the alehouse on the arm of a grizzled mariner. They sauntered northwards. Boltfoot put away his pipe, rose slowly from his place by the tree and followed them. Every few steps the couple stopped to kiss and fumble. The man’s eager hands lifted her skirts and stroked her inner thigh, while her hands went into his hose, accompanied by a great deal of grunting and slurping.
The next street was an alley of poor tenements and crumbling hovels where children in rags played in the dust and toothless gossips stood with their arms folded passing the time of day. Many of the houses were nothing but a tangled skeleton of blackened timbers, a commonplace hazard in this part of the city where half a dozen families might squeeze into a house and one accident with a knocked-over rushlight could lead to disaster. Aggy led her client into a leaning house that was isolated between two such burnt-out ruins.
Boltfoot found a spot where he could watch the doorway. The residents of the alley took one glance at his caliver and cutlass and decided not to interfere with business that did not concern them.
Half an hour later the mariner emerged, reeling as though he still had the rolling deck of a ship beneath his feet. Boltfoot smiled as the man strode away. He’d have no money left in his purse by night’s end. Boltfoot had seen it a thousand times. He unslung his caliver, loaded it and stepped through the doorway with the muzzle pointing ahead of him. He halted and listened, allowing his eyes to grow accustomed to the gloom. He heard a sigh and a scuffing of feet. She was in the room at the back of the house, behind the half-open door.
He pushed through, his gun at his chest. She screamed. The room was bare save a filthy mattress of straw. She was squatting over a tin basin, her skirts pulled up to her chest so that her bare legs and nether parts were obscenely visible.
Boltfoot ranged the caliver at her and tilted his chin. ‘I want to ask you a few questions, Aggy.’
She scrabbled backwards, grabbing the pisspot from beneath her as she did so, flinging it in Boltfoot’s direction. He ducked sideways, but the pot hit his left arm and sprayed him with her pungent urine, soaking his sleeve and splashing his cheek.
She cackled. ‘Ah yes, the dirty cripple. Come to play, have you?’
‘Back against the wall.’
She emitted another foul laugh. ‘Is that how you want me? Front or back?’
Boltfoot limped forward and pushed the muzzle of his weapon into her belly. ‘Move.’
She stayed where she was, pushing out her chest, defiance in her eyes. ‘How much you got, cripple? Shilling for a fuck, sixpence for a frigging. Told you before, didn’t I.’ She opened her mouth in a roundel. ‘Or this for nine pence. That’s a favourite with my sailor friends. Reminds them of the cabin boys, so they do say.’
‘Comely as you are, Aggy, I want nothing like that from you. What I want is information and I’ll pay you more than a shilling for it. Be straight and helpful and I’ll make it more than worth your while.’
‘Put up your evil-looking weapon and I’ll think about it.’
Boltfoot lowered the stock of his caliver to the rubble-strewn floor, dried his face with his unsoaked sleeve, and fished a handful of coins from his purse. ‘What’s there to think about?’ He proffered a few shillings to her. ‘That’s all you’re after.’
‘I’ve got to think about my lovely throat, which I don’t want slit.’
‘Who’d do that to you, Aggy?’