Traitor (16 page)

B
OLTFOOT
C
OOPER LAY
asleep in the barnloft. His bed was hay, his sleep was deep, as though he had been drugged by juice of poppy. It was early evening, not even seven of the clock, but he could not stay awake. He had not meant to sleep, but the drowsiness had come over him without warning.

In his dream, he felt a violent quaking, like the shiver of a fever, but then he awoke and found his shoulder actually being shaken by Jane.

‘Boltfoot, I brought you food.’ She leant forward and touched his forehead, then frowned. ‘You are burning up, husband.’

‘A cold in the head, that is all.’

‘You are not well. If this is the sweating sickness, you are in peril.’

‘Not the sweat. It is a cold, Jane, a common cold. Leave me be.’

‘I will bring you home.’

‘No, I must stay here, with Ivory …’

‘Boltfoot Cooper, your son wants a father to look up to, not a grave to visit.’

Boltfoot’s bones and joints had been aching for a day. His back, still not healed properly from being badly scorched by fire a year past, caused him yet more pain. And he had this
feverish cold. It was a slight thing, he was certain, but it fatigued him and slowed him down, and it would last a day or two. He needed rest. He felt nearer sixty than forty.

‘Where is Mr Ivory?’

‘He is here.’

Boltfoot looked around. Where was he?

‘Perhaps he is outside, smoking his curious pipe. Even
he
is not foolish enough to light up here in a hayloft.’

‘I did not see him, Boltfoot.’

‘He won’t be far.’ He struggled to his feet.

‘First take a drink. You need drink for a sweat, the old gossips do say.’

Boltfoot took the flagon from her hands and swallowed some of the ale. It did not taste good to him, but he said nothing, handed the flagon back to her and wiped his sleeve across his mouth.

Jane put down the flagon and the basket of food – two loaves, some cold smoked herring, butter, a pint of peas. She went first down the ladder from the loft, followed by Boltfoot, who was slower than usual. Each step on each rung seemed an effort.

They stopped at the ground floor of the old oak-framed barn. Boltfoot looked around. It was an echoing place, high with ancient beams, and littered with ploughshares, sickles, scythes and old wagon wheels.

‘Mr Ivory!’ he called. There was no response.

He and Jane went out of the gaping, double-doored entryway and looked about again. The barn was a few hundred yards from the farm cottage, which was easily visible across a flat field, new-sown with barley. They could see clearly in all directions in this wide landscape. There was no sign of Ivory.

‘He may be a churl, but I hadn’t taken him for a fool,’ growled Boltfoot. ‘He knows I’ve saved his life once and he’ll
need me again.’ He spoke to convince her, though he had a churning in his belly. ‘Was that sister of yours at home when you left?’

Jane shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Well, if we find her, we’ll doubtless find him, too – and I’ll have some hard words for him.’

‘You’re in no state to walk. It’s three miles home. Farmer Cox will take us in his cart.’

Boltfoot sighed. He did not feel at all well. ‘As always you are right, Mistress Cooper. That’s what we’ll do.’

Boltfoot and Jane arrived home in the farm cart soon after dark. The younger children were all in bed. Judith was at her sewing in a corner of the room. Jane strode up to her and shouted at her.

‘Where is he? Where’s Mr Ivory?’

Judith bristled, but averted her eyes and fixed them instead on her stitchwork. ‘Why are you asking
me
where he is?’

‘Because you’ve been like a vixen on heat with him, that’s why. Now, where is he? Do you not know how important all this is?’

‘I’ve done nothing.’

‘Well, you look as guilty as a dog with a string of sausages.’

Boltfoot came up to them. ‘Hush, Jane. I’m sure if Judith knows anything she’ll tell us.’ He smiled at the girl and lowered his voice. ‘You wouldn’t want anything to happen to him, would you?’

She looked up from her sewing. Her mouth was turned down. It occurred to Boltfoot that she had been crying. Jane saw it, too.

‘What is it, Judith? You must tell me if something has happened.’

‘She won’t tell anyone,’ their mother said from the far side
of the room, where she was knitting a cap for one of the children. ‘Been like a dumb mule since she came in an hour ago. I don’t like it, Jane.’

Jane knelt beside her sister and put an arm around her shoulders. ‘Has he done something to you, Jude?’

Judith fell forward, sobbing, into her sister’s arms.

‘There, there, little sister.’

Boltfoot saw a spare stool by the fire and went to sit on it. He leant forward and rested his elbows on his thighs. Women’s tears were a thing he found hard to cope with at the best of times, but in his present condition, it was beyond him.

‘I had thought he loved …
liked
me. But he only wanted me for one thing.’

Tom Cawston stood up from the seat where he was drinking his evening beer. He shook his fist and beer slopped from his tankard. ‘I’ll kill him. Never mind Cecil or the Council, I’ll have his balls for pig fodder if he’s used a girl of mine dishonestly.’

‘Oh no, it’s nothing like that, Father. I know what you’re thinking and it’s not that.’

‘Then what, Jude?’ Jane said gently.

‘Oh I feel such a fool, Jane. He asked me to come to him quietly and show him the tavern over in Sudbury where they have the games, the ones the constable knows nothing about, or pretends not to. The Black Moth—’

‘How do you know about that place, young woman?’ her father demanded.

‘Some of the boys go there, when they have a few pence. I got ears, Father. Soon as I got him there, he just walked in and left me outside.’

Boltfoot was already up from the stool, his hand gripped firmly around the stock of his caliver. ‘I’m going there now.’

‘You can’t, Boltfoot,’ Jane said. ‘You’re sick.’

‘I’ll be sicker still if anything happens to that stoat of a man.’

Shakespeare was sweating and dusty when he entered the bedchamber at Lathom House. He glanced over at Dee, who was studying some book or map, and looked up, unsmiling. Shakespeare nodded to him in acknowledgment, then sat on a stool and pulled off his boots.

Dee rose from the table and stood to his full height. He was a tall man, with an elegant bearing.

‘Mr Shakespeare,’ he said with as much hauteur as he could muster. ‘I have been restricted to this room all day long, a prisoner, held by the two men who are supposed to protect me.’

‘Good. They have done their job well.’

‘This is not to be tolerated!’

Shakespeare undid his doublet and lay on his mattress. He closed his eyes, hoping for some sleep. It seemed to him he had seen most of south-western Lancashire in his riding this day. From Ormskirk, he had travelled south to Knowsley, a few miles inland from the small harbour town of Liverpool. It was at Knowsley that the earl had been hunting when his illness struck. The house there was shut up, manned only by an aged retainer and his wife. They would say nothing and had closed the door in his face.

Near by, he had found a clergyman walking with a dog along a country lane. The cleric had grumbled about the impossibility of his work and the number of Catholics in the area.

‘Some Sundays there’s only half a dozen in church. They laugh at the recusancy laws, for who will enforce them?’

Shakespeare ignored his complaining. He was interested in other things, particularly what he had been told by the woman who chanted in the earl’s bedchamber.

‘There is talk that the earl has been bewitched, reverend sir,’ he said to the vicar. ‘He even believes it himself. Have you heard word of witches or cunning men in these parts?’

‘Jesuits, seminary priests, witches, they’re one and the same to me. All do pray to the dark side.’

‘It is said there is a woman resides in the woods near here, one that lives wild and consorts with birds. Have you heard of her? Can you point me the way to her?’

The vicar looked at Shakespeare doubtfully. ‘Who am I talking with, sir?’

‘My name is Shakespeare. I am an officer of the crown, inquiring into certain matters. Your cooperation will be looked on most favourably. When next I dine with the Archbishop, I will be pleased to inform him of your assistance.’

The vicar considered this for a few moments, then nodded gravely. ‘Very well. I have heard such talk, too. I have never seen the woman, yet this is no surprise for they flee at the sight of a cross or a vicar of God. How can a witch be discovered when she can turn herself into corbie-crow or mole-warp at will?’

‘Which wood is she said to inhabit?’

‘Sceptre Wood, the other side of Knowsley House, where the earl hunts.’

Shakespeare bade him goodbye and spent the next four hours walking and riding through the wood, to no avail. There was no woman there, no house of twigs, no waxen images or giants, nothing to be seen. All he got for his efforts was a raging thirst and briar-scratched hands and face. Returning to Lathom House, he felt a pang as he noted that his brother and the players had departed, leaving only flattened grass where their tents had been. It felt like the end of something, a coming of winter at a time of year when summer should be blowing in.

Now he lay on his mattress, vaguely aware of the cold animosity radiating from Dr Dee.

‘I must get back to my treasure digging, Mr Shakespeare,’ Dee said, his tone a little more conciliatory. ‘You cannot know what this means to me.’

‘You can return to it when you are safe,’ Shakespeare mumbled, his eyes still closed.

‘And when will that be?’

‘When I say you are safe, Dr Dee. Anyway, we will be gone very soon. It seems there is much ill-feeling towards you here. People believe you have cursed the Earl of Derby.’

‘That is preposterous!’

‘Indeed it is. Now if it please you, I would like to sleep a little …’

Shakespeare turned over, his face away from the doctor. His breathing eased as sleep took him.

Boltfoot knew Sudbury well enough. In one of the meaner alleys, he quickly found the drinking den known as the Black Moth, though there was no sign to inform the passing stranger. He tethered the horse to a ring set into the wall, then lifted the latch on the low, anonymous, door. It did not open. With his fist, he knocked lightly, twice, paused, then once more, as Judith had instructed him.

From inside, he heard the muffled sound of loud voices and barking. He waited. Eventually, he heard a bolt being pulled back. A small opening appeared, a crack of light that promised a glowing, welcoming interior.

A voice came through the crack, though no face was visible. ‘Who’s there?’

‘The name’s Cooper. Boltfoot Cooper.’

‘Do I know you, Mr Cooper?’

‘I’m not the bloody law. I’m new around here and I heard
you have good ale and a game or two of primero. Just let me in and give me a drink.’

‘Who told you of us?’

‘A gambling man in Stowmarket.’

‘Very well. But one wrong step and you’ll leave here with more bones broken than whole.’

The door opened wider and Boltfoot stepped into the room. The landlord, a big fellow with a beer belly and an ill-kempt beard that made him look no different to ten thousand other innkeepers, eyed Boltfoot up and down, assessing him. Boltfoot lowered his gaze. The man seemed jolly enough, but Boltfoot did not like the look of the bared teeth displayed by the mastiff that the landlord held, straining, on a leash.

‘Well met, stranger,’ the landlord said, proffering a hand to be shaken. He had a firm grip that crushed Boltfoot’s knuckles. ‘And I see you are well armed, which is a fine thing for any man out after dark. But while you’re in the Black Moth, you’ll leave your gun and sword with me.’

Reluctantly, Boltfoot unslung his caliver and handed it to the landlord, then took his cutlass from his belt and held it out on his palms.

‘Look after them, landlord, I went halfway round the world and back to get those.’

‘Aye, you look like a seafarer. You’re a long way inland.’

‘Served under Drake when he circled the globe. I’m here visiting kin.’

The landlord looked at him closely, almost with respect, and his suspicions seemed to ease. ‘Well, I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr Cooper. If you served with Vice-Admiral Drake, then the first gage of booze is on me. You’ll be Jane Cawston’s man, I reckon, for I know she married one of the
Golden Hind
mariners.’

‘That’s me.’

‘Then you’re famous in these parts. Here, take back your weapons.’ He handed back the caliver and cutlass.

Boltfoot took the arms and nodded his thanks.

The landlord’s response worried him. He had come to this remote region of eastern England because he wished to be obscure, not famous. Looking around the room, he was painfully aware of the many eyes that studied him. He smiled and nodded. Some of the men nodded back, others looked away, as though ashamed to be caught in such company. There were half a dozen tables, all with men playing at cards or dice, drinking great tankards of ale and beer. There were also several serving girls, with low-cut chemises and ale-stained kirtles, who looked very much as if they would serve up more than strong drink for a few pennies more.

The landlord sent his dog on its way with a pat on the flank, then strode over to the keg and drew a tankard of bitter beer, which he handed to Boltfoot.

‘There you are, Mr Cooper. Now tell me, what is your game of choice? We mostly play primero and dice, but there’s bowling to be had at the back and on Saturdays we have cockfights. I have to charge an entrance fee for that.’

Boltfoot packed tobacco into his pipe and cadged a light from a tallow candle, then looked around the room once more. There was no sign of Ivory, damn his scrawny hide.

‘You have other tables than this, in another room?’

‘Why, what’s wrong here? The constable’s taken care of, so you’ve no worries on that score. No need to hide away. No one’s going to come barging in, and any goodwives that try to drag away their husbandmen feel the toe of my boot.’