The Heretics (34 page)

Shakespeare was escorted straight to Cecil’s apartments, where he found him handing out orders to half a dozen administrative clerks. Cecil shooed them away with a wave, then summoned his man Clarkson.

‘Have the Lord Chamberlain and the Lord Steward meet me here in an hour.’

Clarkson bowed and departed. Cecil at last turned to Shakespeare.

‘Good, you’re here, John.’

‘I have a great deal to report.’

‘We are going to see Her Majesty. Say your piece then. Be prepared, for it will not be pleasant. She desires to know everything. Do not try to spare her feelings; hold nothing back or she will know and you will feel the tempest of her fury.’

‘Very well.’

‘At least you look presentable today. Come, leave your pistols here. She will not have them in her presence.’

Shakespeare removed the pistols from his belt and placed them on Cecil’s table. The two men walked briskly through the rooms of the palace until they came to the oak-panelled presence chamber where Sir Thomas Heneage greeted them with a weak nod. Shakespeare was struck by how gaunt and ill the Queen’s oldest friend appeared. He bowed to Heneage graciously, though he would never take his hand; he was a man he admired in many ways, but could never respect.

‘Sir Robert, Mr Shakespeare, it is a pleasure to see you both, even in such fraught circumstances.’

To his left, Shakespeare noted another small group: the Earl of Essex with three of his senior men – the brothers Francis and Anthony Bacon, and the renowned codebreaker Thomas Phelippes.

Cecil bowed to Essex and the earl raised his hand in dismissive acknowledgment. This was the way the hierarchy worked. Cecil might have the political power as de facto Principal Secretary, but Essex was the nobleman. It was no secret that they loathed each other and were engaged in a life-and-death struggle for influence.

Cecil turned to Shakespeare. ‘Wait here, I will see if she is ready for us.’

Shakespeare felt a touch on his shoulder and turned around. Lucia Trevail stood before him in her modest court clothes. She proffered her gloved hand. He took it and kissed it.

‘It seems I cannot get away from you, Mr Shakespeare. You really do follow me everywhere.’

He laughed. ‘You departed very suddenly. I did not have a chance to say farewell.’

‘And now as soon as we meet again,
you
are going to desert
me
for Her Majesty’s royal charms, are you not?’

‘I have an audience with the Queen . . . but I would see you again.’

She moved closer to him and looked up into his eyes. ‘When you have done with your meeting, do not run away. I have information for you.’

‘Indeed? Tell me now.’

She fluttered her fingers towards the entrance to the Privy Chamber. ‘Go, go, you are being summoned.’ Briefly she held his hand and squeezed a small scrap of paper into his palm.

Cecil was at the doorway, signalling Shakespeare and Essex’s group to approach. Shakespeare hesitated, but Lucia Trevail was already disappearing through a side door.

Essex immediately pushed forward. He towered over Cecil and elbowed him aside so that he might enter the royal presence first. Cecil deferred to him without complaint, and to Heneage, but to no one else.

The Queen was already in the small, intimate room, seated on a tall-backed throne with bright-red cushions and a red footstool supporting her exquisite silver shoes. She wore a gown of white silk, bordered with giant pearls. A heavy necklace of rubies and diamonds hung down her breast. Armed Lifeguards stood either side of her. Cecil and the other courtiers and intelligencers immediately dropped to their knees and bowed their heads low. All except Essex; he merely bowed his head momentarily and did not kneel. Instead, he stood with an insolent air at the front, in the centre, with Heneage to his right and Cecil to his left. Behind them were the Bacon brothers, along with Phelippes and Shakespeare.

The Queen did not like the smell of sweat, so all save Shakespeare had doused themselves with perfumes. The air was heavy with the ill-matched combination of their scents, from marjoram to lavender, from rosewater to musk and civet. Shakespeare thought he might gag from the fumes; together they were no more fragrant than a hog’s fart.

Her Majesty looked at Essex with displeasure and waited. Essex did not move. Suddenly, she rose from her cushions, stepped forward, fist raised, and hit out towards the side of his head. He raised his own hand as if to fend her off. Her Lifeguards, resplendent in their coats of red, faced in black velvet and the Queen’s silver gilt escutcheon on the back, moved forward, swords drawn. Essex managed to avert his head from her blow without touching her, then slowly and with great reluctance, sank to one knee. The Lifeguards did not back off.

‘We greet you, cousins,’ the Queen said, studiously addressing all but Essex.

She stepped towards Heneage, and raised him up with a touch of her hand to his shoulder. He struggled to his feet, obviously in great pain. She moved on to Cecil, then the Bacons, Shakespeare and Phelippes, raising each of them up with a gentle word of recognition and the lightest of touches. Finally she stood before Essex, who looked as if he would explode with anger. She touched his shoulder and he rose to his full and considerable height.

‘There, cousin,’ she said. ‘That was not so difficult, was it?’

Essex scowled and turned his head away.

The Queen was old and fragile. She moved back to her throne and slumped on to her cushions. Above her extravagant starched ruff, her face was coated in white paint of ceruse that clung to her age-lines like marl in the furrows of a field. Her nose was hooked like a hawk’s beak, her lips thin. Shakespeare could not but note that her red wig was the slightest margin askew. And yet her black eyes had lost none of their vigour or perspicacity. When she spoke, her voice was not as firm as once it had been, perhaps afflicted by her reluctance to open wide her mouth and reveal the blackness of her teeth. And yet she demanded attention and even the proud and scornful Essex could not escape the force of her words.

‘We do not recall such days as these,’ she said. ‘Even when Parma and Medina Sidonia threatened our very existence, we suffered no Spaniard on our beaches.’

Her courtiers remained silent. There was nothing to say.

‘Were I a man, I would not have moved from that Cornish beach though I were alone, standing against an army one hundred thousand strong that had sailed in from the sea with all the world’s cannon and shot. And yet, we are told, our Cornishmen fled before a mere four galleys and four hundred soldiers. It is a stain on their county for all eternity, and shames England. What men were these to surrender our realm without laying down their lives? Call them not men, but craven pups who roll over and expose their soft underbellies to their Spanish masters.’

Her voice had risen in the intensity of its fury, but it was not loud, which somehow made it the more terrifying.

‘Mr Shakespeare.’ Suddenly she turned to him. ‘You were there. Why did
you
not give your life for your sovereign and your country on that beach?’

Shakespeare caught Cecil’s eye and the barely discernible shake of the head.
Don’t try to defend yourself
, he was saying,
ride the storm
.

‘I humbly beg your forgiveness, Your Majesty.’

‘Have you nothing to say in your defence?’

‘No, ma’am. All I can tell you is what happened. I cannot say we were right. We fought, but we were greatly outnumbered and outgunned. Sir Francis Godolphin believed a tactical retreat would serve England the better and I agreed with him, for we were a dozen and they were four hundred. We battled our way back to St Michael’s Mount. If Your Majesty believes we were in the wrong, then I cannot disagree.’

‘God’s blood! Now they know what mettle our men are made of – and it is base, sir, base! What now will deter them from launching waves of invasion along our southern coasts, safe in the knowledge that the defenders will flee at the sight of them? This was cowardice, Mr Shakespeare. My father would have had your head for this.’

Shakespeare felt the breath of fury and rather wished he was back on the beach at Penzance, being shot at. He hung his head.

‘Your Majesty—’ Cecil began.

‘Do you interrupt me, little man?’

‘Forgive me, ma’am, but I would speak in Mr Shakespeare’s defence, for I know he will not do so himself.’

‘Defence! What defence is there for cowardice?’

‘I know that Mr Shakespeare hazarded his life in a most perilous mission that may yet prove invaluable to the safety of your realm.’

‘Mr Shakespeare, what was this mission?’

Shakespeare looked at Cecil, who nodded. He drew a breath and began his tale.

‘I scouted the enemy positions, ma’am. I counted their strength and spied out their armaments and formations. Perhaps most vitally, I saw an Englishman with the Spanish commander.’

‘Is this the pilot Burley, the traitor I have heard of in letters from Godolphin and others?’

‘No, this was another man and, from descriptions I have, I believe I know his name. I believe, also, that he is still in the country and that he is among a group of enemy mercenaries and assassins who have been wreaking havoc and death among our own. I fear they threaten your secret networks, ma’am, and perhaps the very future of England.’

‘Who is this man?’

‘I believe his name is Regis Roag.’

As he spoke, he saw the Earl of Essex stiffen.

‘Continue.’

‘Mr Mills, who is presently in Newgate awaiting sentence of death to be carried out, tells me he has been known to certain intelligencing circles for some years. Until now, however, he has worked on our side. It seems he is a turncoat and a cold, ruthless killer. He is also a man who feels deeply aggrieved, believing himself of the blood royal.’

The Queen, for a moment, seemed lost for words.

‘Let me explain, ma’am,’ Shakespeare continued. ‘Mr Roag is so deluded that he thinks himself the son of your late brother, King Edward. He believes he was begotten by him of a young serving maid. No one takes these claims seriously, of course, but it is said he clings to them as a terrier holds a fox in its lair. It is possible he seeks revenge on England for a perceived slight. I think he or his confederates killed a man of ours in Plymouth, one Trott, and tried to kill my man Mr Cooper. It is possible, too, that he is responsible for the murder of Anthony Friday, the playmaker and intelligencer.’

Elizabeth turned to Essex. ‘Have you heard of this man Roag, cousin?’

‘No.’

Shakespeare looked at Essex in astonishment. Why was he lying? He read, too, the subtle smile of Robert Cecil.
Go for the kill, Mr Shakespeare. Do your worst, for you have nothing to lose.
Indeed, he did have nothing to lose. He had crossed the Earl of Essex before and knew that he would be an enemy to death. Nothing he could say would make matters worse between them.

‘Forgive me for speaking out of turn, ma’am, but it does seem strange to me that Regis Roag is unknown to his lordship, for Mr Mills told me he was for a time in the earl’s service at Essex House. I understand that the earl is an exceeding busy man and has many retainers, so perhaps he was not acquainted with Mr Roag. Perhaps Mr Phelippes knows more than I do.’

Thomas Phelippes pushed nervously at the nosepiece of his metal-framed glasses. He was as brutishly ugly as ever, yet Shakespeare knew that his pock-marked face and lank yellow hair were but the external trappings of the man, and that his head housed a brain as fine as a pearl concealed within the rough husk of an oyster.

The codebreaker nodded hurriedly, avoiding his master’s merciless gaze, then spoke with extreme caution.

‘There was such a man, ma’am – for a while. I took it upon myself to employ him and there was no reason for the earl ever to have met him or to have known of his existence. He seemed useful, for he inhabited the world of the playhouses where treacherous men such as Marlowe and Kyd plied their trade. But I dispensed with his services when it became obvious that he was insane and dangerous.’

‘Did he tell you this story of being our brother’s son?’

‘Constantly, ma’am. I believed it my duty to make some inquiries. What I discovered was that his mother had, indeed, been a drab in the household of the late king, but she had been dismissed for incontinent lewdness with one of the guards. This tale of your brother being Roag’s father is egregious nonsense. But there are many such claims made, as I am sure you are aware. If such tittle-tattle were to be believed, you would have a hundred or more half-brothers and -sisters. But these stories are scurrilous, ma’am, all of them – and no one believes them.’

The Queen turned to Anthony Bacon. ‘Cousin, you are in command of the earl’s intelligence network. Do you have knowledge of Roag?’

Bacon shifted uneasily. He was unhealthy-looking, his face pasty and wan. Finally he nodded, so suddenly and sharply that it might have been a tic rather than a signal of affirmation. ‘I agree with everything Mr Phelippes has said, Your Majesty.’

It seemed to Shakespeare that these men were like children before a stern parent. The Queen surveyed them with her all-seeing eye, then turned to the most difficult son, Essex, the sullen, defiant one whom she loved but could not control.

‘And you say you knew nothing of this man, cousin? We are surprised that you were kept in the dark so. Do you not require reports from Mr Phelippes and Mr Bacon?’

‘I have more important matters than the wild imaginings of some lowly intelligencer. That is why I employ Messrs Bacon and Phelippes. And if our men are dying, I think we should look where our enemies are gaining their knowledge.’ He pointed with menace at Shakespeare, then Cecil. ‘I say there is a traitor in
their
midst, ma’am. Look there to find the enemy within, I say. Ask Mr Shakespeare why he let Garrick Loake die. Ask him why he did not bring the treacherous Jesuit Weston to the Tower for questioning under torture.’

It was a common tactic to deflect criticism. Simply move the attack on to someone else. It mattered not that the attack was unjustified; for men such as Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, all was fair in court politics. Shakespeare understood this, and yet the words stung, for there was an element of truth in them; he should not have let Garrick Loake die without learning his secret.