Witch Hammer (18 page)

And he held her at arm’s length.

Dawn was glowing as a distant cockerel heralded it, from somewhere to the south where the sleepy Cotswold villages were stirring. Joyce Clopton had fallen asleep, finally and her head lay on Kit Marlowe’s chest. He looked beyond her and saw the worn-out faces of her people. They lay in huddles under the wagons with Lord Strange’s Men, wrapped in cloaks and snoring softly in the morning. There were only a handful of them, those who were diehard loyalists, who had served the Cloptons all their lives. Those who had no kin or friends in Stratford; those not wedded to the stone and the timbers but to the heiress of Clopton herself. Only Boscastle sat upright against a wagon wheel, wide awake and watchful.

Marlowe eased the girl down so that she lay on the blankets on the ground and he laid his Colleyweston cloak over her shoulders. He crossed the grass in silent strides and sat down next to the Clopton’s steward.

‘A sorry scene, this,’ he said.

‘Aye, sir.’ Boscastle nodded. ‘And one I never thought to see.’

‘What are Lady Joyce’s plans, Boscastle?’ Marlowe asked. ‘Do you know?’

‘The day before yesterday, I found her wandering the elder woods at Clopton,’ the steward said. ‘Singing to herself, she was, a song of the nursery, Master Marlowe, from when she was a little girl. I don’t mind telling you –’ he looked the man in the eye – ‘I cried a little too.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Men aren’t supposed to do that, are they?’

Marlowe smiled. ‘Good men do.’

‘She spoke of taking her father’s body to the south-west. The Carew family are distant cousins. George of that name and Lady Joyce were betrothed at one time.’

‘Were they?’ Marlowe asked. He knew there was many a slip when betrothals happened early.

Boscastle smiled at the memory of it. ‘There was nothing formal. She was seven, he a year older. She came running to me in the old woods, dragging this hapless, confused boy by the hand and said “Boscastle –”’ his voice became higher in his fond mimicry of her – ‘“Boscastle, congratulate us. We are betrothed.”’

‘So she had a mind of her own even then,’ Marlowe said, laughing.

‘Oh, she did,’ Boscastle said, remembering. ‘They’d kissed, you see. Joyce and George. And to her, that was it. A promise of marriage. She was going to have twenty children, apparently.’

‘And George?’

Boscastle chuckled. ‘George didn’t look too keen. A bit bemused by the whole thing, if you ask me.’

The pair fell silent as Boscastle’s smile faded and his face darkened into a frown. ‘But the south-west is far away,’ he said. ‘And they’ll be coming.’

‘They?’ Marlowe asked. ‘Who?’

‘Did Lady Joyce not tell you? About Greville, I mean?’

‘She did,’ Marlowe told him. She had blurted it all out through the tears as they lay under the stars beyond the Whispering Knights. ‘But I assumed that once she’d left Clopton . . .’

Boscastle chuckled grimly. ‘It must have slipped her mind,’ he said. ‘It may be a sacrilege, Master Marlowe and I own it was my idea if anyone is to be damned for it, but in the coffin with the master is what we could gather together of the family gold and silver – by Sir Edward’s rights, his.’

‘And the movables thereof,’ Marlowe said, quoting the fatuous law.

‘Indeed, sir,’ Boscastle said. ‘Now, mercifully, I don’t know Sir Edward Greville very well, but I do know he’s a greedy bastard who doesn’t like being cheated. That lawyer of his . . .’

‘Blake?’

‘That toad’ll reckon up what’s missing soon enough and his High and Mightiness will be on the road to get it back. We didn’t exactly disguise our tracks. Everybody remembers a funeral on the road. All they’ll have to do is ask.’

Marlowe stood up to look over the wagon at the road snaking into the morning, to the north-east. ‘If you’re right,’ he said to the steward, ‘how much time do you think we have?’

Boscastle looked around him at the pitiful remnants of the Clopton people, at the large number of women with Strange’s Men. ‘Not enough, Master Marlowe,’ he said. ‘Not nearly enough.’

‘A funeral, sisters,’ one of the women hidden in the small stand of trees said, licking her lips with a pointed and blackened tongue.

‘Yes,’ said one of her companions, leaning against a tree to scratch a recalcitrant louse biting her back. ‘But why here?’ She rummaged in her ear and inspected the results. She carefully harvested the wax from under her fingernail into a small bag hung around her waist.

‘I know the woman,’ a voice said from ground level. ‘It’s her father in that coffin.’

The first speaker, the keeper of fire and stone at the Rollrights gave her a look. She knew that they were all sisters under the skin, but sometimes these newcomers got above their station, speaking out of turn. The conversation had been going nicely widdershins round the circle, as it should, when she had spoken. Still, she was young. Another thing to hold against her, to hug to her heart until it festered into some nice helpful hatred.

One of the other women sniffed the air, like the Beast Glatisant. ‘Long dead?’ she murmured to the girl.

‘Days, one day. I’m not sure. I left before he died, but he had the mark on him so I know it must be him. There’s no one else she would hawk round the countryside, that’s sure.’

The woman sniffed again and frowned. She was also new to the company and relied on her other senses more than the rest, being without sight. The smells emanating from the women around her would have confounded the most talented hound, so perhaps that was why she was getting no smell of corruption. She liked a bit of corruption and if the corpse was far advanced, there were rich pickings to be had; fingers, hands, even locks of hair could all be put to good use. Never mind, she told herself, if he wasn’t ready for harvesting yet, time would soon solve that problem. She had listened from a distance to the conversation between the hawk and the woman in the night. Although she hadn’t said as much in words, her voice was telling all with ears to hear that she wouldn’t be leaving his side in a hurry, given half a chance.

The fat keeper of the stones shifted her weight from one foot to another and spoke to the rest. ‘I don’t know about the rest of you, but I need to have a sit down. Shall we gather by the King Stone? It makes a nice centre for a circle.’

‘Won’t they see us?’ the young woman asked.

Another, who hadn’t spoken so far, said, ‘Cloak of invisibility.’ She rolled her eyes and clucked her tongue. She got fed up with those sisters who wouldn’t use the powers He gave them. The old one she travelled with, for example. Wouldn’t fly to save her feet, not for anything.

Her travelling companion spoke softly, the voice of reason. ‘Not everyone has your skills, my dear,’ she said. ‘Why don’t we just sit over there on that nice bank, well into the trees? Then we won’t have to worry about our cloaks slipping from our shoulders and giving away our presence.’

The blind woman had never acquired the skill of invisibility, having no way of knowing when the trick had worked, so she nodded in everyone’s general direction and held out her hand to be led through the shrubby trees to the bank. They sank down on to the moss and began to talk together in low voices, but every now and again, the eyeless woman raised her nose and sniffed the air.

No corruption yet. But with a thrill in her heart she knew that something wicked was coming their way.

They looked like a black cloud at first, a smudge on the bright gold of the corn fields. Their spear points glinted in the sun and the little camp on the hilltop fell silent.

‘No, no, Will,’ Martin was saying, ‘that’s cut two. You want cut three now. Up, parry and . . .’ But he was scything thin air with his broadsword because William Shaxsper was standing yards away, his scimitar trailing on the ground and he was staring at Meon Hill.

The black cloud was moving down it now and Shaxsper groaned. He crossed to Sledd and Marlowe who were standing by the wagons. ‘I know that flag,’ he said. ‘It’s Lord Greville.’

‘Sir Edward Greville,’ Joyce Clopton corrected him. ‘The man has enough airs and graces as it is.’ She had recovered herself having slept and having poured out her troubles to Marlowe. She was the heiress of Clopton now and estate or not she intended to honour the name. One by one the heads came up, the women mending costumes and darning stockings, the men who had been hammering flats into place. All of them were staring at the little army reaching the valley floor below them.

‘Who are these people?’ Reginald Scot had abandoned his notebook and joined the others.

‘Let’s just say they haven’t come for our autographs,’ Marlowe told him. He glanced at Shaxsper. Perhaps the time had come to see if he could use that sword for real.

‘Kit, Master Sledd,’ Joyce hissed to them. ‘It’s me Greville wants or at least what’s in my father’s coffin. We shouldn’t have imposed, shouldn’t have come. We still have time. It’ll be half an hour before they reach us. Boscastle, harness the horses.’

‘One moment, My Lady.’ Marlowe stopped the man in his tracks. He turned to the camp, all of them watching, waiting, uncertain what was happening or what to do. ‘These are the men who stole Lady Joyce’s home,’ he said, raising his voice. ‘The home where you and I were made welcome just days ago. Sir William’s barns gave us shelter, his beds gave us rest. We drank his beer and his wine, ate his food. Some of us –’ and he glanced sidelong at Thomas and Nat – ‘enjoyed other things at Clopton.’ Only Thomas blushed. ‘Now, this jackanapes Greville has come to take Sir William’s body itself.’

There were shouts and cries from everybody.

‘He can’t do that!

‘That’s sacrilege, that is!’

‘The sick bastard!’

Only Marlowe heard Nat Sawyer mutter, ‘Not really our problem, my opinion.’ He noted the reaction but said nothing. Time enough to get even with the little squirt later.

‘No!’ Joyce shouted. ‘No, Kit, you don’t understand. Greville’s after . . .’

He stopped her with a finger to his lips and a raised eyebrow. ‘. . . after all, no more than a man,’ he finished for her.

Sledd was not at all sure about this. ‘We’ve got women here, Marlowe. If there’s to be fighting . . .’

It was a woman who spun him round. Little Liza, barely reaching to the man’s ruff. ‘Now, see here, Ned Sledd. I’ve been with you now . . . how long?’

‘For ever,’ Sledd groaned.

‘With Lord Strange for nearly two years. And with you, masterless man as you then were, for over five before that. All of us women have fetched and carried, cooked and cleaned, nursed and tended. We’ve let you have us when you can’t find a strumpet and we’ve wiped up your vomit and put you to bed when you’re any side up with drink. So –’ she wagged a finger at him – ‘don’t use us as your excuse.’

To a man – and woman – Lord Strange’s Men burst into applause and whistles. Marlowe clapped a hand on Sledd’s shoulder. ‘I thought you told me you didn’t have a Britannia, Ned,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Well, you’ve got one now.’

Joyce Clopton’s eyes were red and wet as the camp exploded to life around her. With Marlowe as general and Sledd his second in command, the wagons were rolled end to end to form a bulwark on the ridge in front of the Stones and each man and woman grabbed what weapons they had to hand and stood shoulder to shoulder.

On the slope below the Rollrights, Greville’s column halted.

‘They mean to make a fight of it,’ their captain said, standing in the stirrups and squinting under the rim of his burgonet. He glanced across at Henry Blake sitting uncomfortably on his bay. ‘You’ll excuse me for saying this, Master Blake, but at times like these I can’t help wishing that Sir Edward was here.’

‘Sir Edward obviously assumed you could handle the job, Paget,’ the lawyer snapped. This was not his idea of a good time.
He
had found the Clopton coffers light by a considerable sum.
He
had put two and two together and realized that Lady Joyce had smuggled the coins and gold out. And now
he
was supposed to get it back. Why couldn’t Greville do it himself, or at least leave it to Paget? Blake didn’t do rough stuff.

‘It’s them players, Captain –’ one of the horsemen nudged his animal forward – ‘from Clopton Hall. What are we waiting for?’ And the watchers at the Stones heard the scream of steel as he drew his sword.

‘Reginald,’ Marlowe murmured to the man on his left. ‘Liza has made it pretty plain where Lord Strange’s Men stand in all of this . . . whatever Ned thinks of it. The Clopton people are committed, out of duty or love. But you . . . this isn’t your fight. Things could get nasty.’

‘My work’s not finished yet,’ Scot told him, putting his notebook now in his satchel at his side, ‘and I refuse to leave until it is.’

Marlowe smiled. ‘Will?’ he said to Shaxsper standing to his right. ‘You’ve got a wife and children.’

The glover-turned-Turkish-Knight stared at the column on the hill that was fanning outwards to form a battle line. ‘I also have a father,’ Shaxsper said. ‘A good man who is afraid to leave his house in Stratford because of Sir Edward Greville. I knew there’d have to be a reckoning one day. I just wasn’t expecting it to be here or now. Fighting with these odds is always madness, but let’s form up and see if we can put some method in it.’ He thumbed the edge of the Turkish Knight’s scimitar. ‘This is as dull as the play it is part of,’ he said, ruefully.

‘Then turn it round and use it as a bludgeon,’ Marlowe advised him. He was secretly impressed by the man. Gone was the skittish hothead afraid of Boneless and Kit with the Canstick. In his place stood the Turkish Knight, bold and resolute, his eyes calm, his scimitar at the ready, albeit upside down. But perhaps Master Shaxsper was only afraid of the shapeless things that lurked in the dark, things to terrify the soul.

Along the ridge, where the Clopton people stood, Boscastle was at the front, his old sword drawn, his legs apart as though to balance its weight. Next to him stood Lady Joyce, unarmed and silent, watching as a knot of horsemen broke away from the formation below and came trotting up the hill towards them. Next to her, young John gripped the halberd he’d brought with him from Clopton Hall, just in case, the smooth wood of the handle strangely comforting to him, as if the house itself was with him in spirit, protecting him as it always had.