Muse of fire, p.5
Muse of Fire, page 5
‘It is not,’ Will assured him, ‘but I know loss and grief.’
‘Your boy,’ Cecil recalled. ‘The bearer of your name.’ His solemnity indicated he understood just how big a loss that had been for Will, though it did not take him long to move on to the business he had summoned him for. ‘There is another who grieves here now. The father of Anne Percy, one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting, found dead within these walls.’
‘I had heard of this.’ It would likely be all the court would talk about for a day or two. Deaths in the palace were uncommon enough and almost always due to illness of one kind or another. It was rare for one of the queen’s ladies to succumb.
‘What know you of the Lady Anne?’
‘Only that she was a most unfortunate maid who fell down a staircase?’ Will did not want to admit any more knowledge than this or that he had entertained the notion that her death might have been in any way suspicious, judging by the activity of the palace guards as he was entering it.
‘She was a young lady in the queen’s service, who rose in the night and must have walked too close to the staircase in the dark. She stumbled and fell down it to her death. A most tragic occurrence.’ Cecil related this in an unemotional manner, before adding, ‘That is the story put about.’ And Will knew it would have been Cecil himself who had put it about. ‘But what do you know of her?’ he pressed, as if Will was concealing some hidden knowledge.
‘But little, my lord.’ And he tried to recall more of the Lady now. Will had been at court on the very day she had first attended it with her father, brother and older sister. ‘She was the daughter of a northern lord, kin to the Earl of Northumberland?’
‘A cousin to a most treacherous family,’ Cecil observed. ‘Both the sixth and seventh earls were executed for treason. The eighth likely would have been too, if his death in the tower had not been ruled self-slaughter. As for the ninth and current earl, Henry Percy, only time will afford us the truth of his character. You know they call him the Wizard Earl.’ He sneered at this notion. ‘Because he practises alchemy and believes in science.’ Will could not tell which of these two disciplines Cecil disapproved of most. ‘I suspect he is a secret recusant.’
‘The Lady Anne’s family, though, are Protestant?’ Will wasn’t wholly sure about this but assumed it would have been a barrier to her advancement at court if they were not.
‘Outwardly,’ confirmed Cecil. ‘Her brother, Edmund, seemingly so, and she has a sister who is married to a Scottish lord, who is an avowed protestant. I suspect her uncle, though. The earl always pleads moderation in our dealings with Catholics. I fear the Lady Anne may have been caught up in some plot or intrigue for which she was too innocent and unschooled to survive.’
‘She was young and fair,’ Will recalled, ‘but modest and the queen seemed to take to her.’
‘She did,’ he confirmed before adding, ‘A young woman of noble birth who has served the queen is most sought after.’ Then he said, ‘Though there is always a risk of exposing them to the vices of the court. It can be the cause of a naïve girl’s undoing.’
So far, Cecil had failed to cast any light on his reasons for telling Will about all this. ‘How can I be of assistance in this matter, my lord?’ He meant it quite literally. What on earth could a playmaker offer the spymaster this time? He had once been tasked with looking into a suspicious death, but that was years ago and the initial request had come from his patron, the Earl of Southampton. Cecil’s involvement only came later when Will was ordered to spy on the earl for him. That death had occurred in the city of London, not here at court, a nest of vipers whose ways Will had not yet come close to understanding, let alone mastering.
‘Enquiries will have to be made,’ Cecil explained. ‘If Lady Anne fell, then that is one thing. If she did not and was killed, then there is a murderer in the palace. Who knows who might become his next victim?’
Did he mean the queen might succumb to this madman? There had been attempts on her life before and the young maid was not very far removed from Her Majesty. Who would dare murder one of her ladies though? A respecter of nothing. Would they then be fearless enough to try and kill the queen herself? Perhaps. That would explain the doubled guard and increased scrutiny of everyone walking in or out of the palace that morning. It was indeed Cecil’s doing then.
Will could understand the need for enquiries to be made, and that almost everyone might initially fall under suspicion, but surely others were far more qualified than he to do this work? ‘My lord, would this not be a task better suited to rougher men? I am neither a spy nor a soldier.’
‘No, you are a writer and an actor, and that is precisely why I have chosen you. I cannot rely on any man linked to me. No one, save for myself, William Wade and Poley, knows that you have done me good service before. You have proven yourself to be discreet, and any interaction you do have with me can be explained by my concern to keep heresy and sedition out of your plays, which are performed in front of thousands.’ Then he said, ‘It is vital that no one can accuse me of being responsible for any investigation into this death. If my worst suspicions prove correct, it could involve those at the very heart of Her Majesty’s court. I must not be seen to be either acting on behalf of the queen, nor proceeding without her authority. I can deny this if I am accused of it, simply by denying you, Shakespeare.’
This was not a comforting thought for Will. He now knew that, if any powerful person at court suspected him of taking an interest in matters he had no right to delve into, he could be arrested, tortured or killed.
‘Don’t look so pale, Will. You have done this before and know how to fade into the walls. You are a lowly man with no ambition for a place at court and there is little reason for anyone to assume you conspire against them. You are in very small danger.’ Will was not convinced of that. ‘I, on the other hand, find myself in grave peril these days. Since my father died, I am without allies. They buried him with all honours and told me they would not see his like again, and yet…’ His words trailed away.
‘And yet, my lord?’
‘It was but the matter of a few hours before those lords consigned him to a memory and commenced their plotting; for his position, his power and influence, his place by the queen’s side.’
‘That is your place now, Sir Robert,’ Will reassured him.
‘Is it? For how long, I wonder, if they have their way? They are conspiring against me and, now that my father is gone, I must defeat them all on my own, which I shall do.’
‘By outwitting them, Lord. By being cleverer than they are.’ Will reminded himself that, if in doubt, while standing before a great man, use flattery. It usually worked.
Cecil’s tone was defiant now. ‘Every one of the queen’s favourites and her landed nobles wants to see me sent to the block. My crime? Daring to advise Her Majesty on the best interests of herself and the realm, and they call that treason. They see me as her Cardinal Wolsey or Thomas Cromwell, a man born lowlier than they, who has ascended above them all using his wits alone. Wolsey was a butcher’s son, and Cromwell had a blacksmith for a father. Both were brought down by jealous earls. My own father was made a baron, but our family came from the Welsh Marches before gaining favour with the queen’s grandfather, so I am still considered low-born and an upstart by these dukes and earls at court.’ He sneered at their plotting. ‘They resist no opportunity to remind the queen of this. If she were to be poisoned by their words just once, and doubt me for an instant, I could be thrown down, but alas for them all, she needs me. My enemies would drag me to the gates of hell if she let them.’
‘Then surely it is wiser to leave such a delicate investigation to men more suited to such matters.’ He meant Poley, who was presumably still standing outside the door. The last thing Will wanted was to be set to work by a man everyone else wished to destroy.
‘I want fresh eyes on this,’ Cecil informed him. ‘It is my burden to protect the queen from her enemies, foreign and domestic, and I see plots everywhere. That is both a blessing and a curse. Sometimes I wonder if I imagine intrigue even where there is none? I have a network of informants who rely on me for their patronage, but they do tend to feed me the meat I most hunger for.’
‘You think they invent plots?’ How ironic, since Will had once been asked to invent one against the Earl of Southampton by Cecil himself. It had taken all of Will’s courage back then to refuse.
‘Almost certainly. They take coin from my purse and immediately feel obliged to repay me with information about the queen’s enemies, some of which they spin like webs into wider conspiracies, to increase their importance in my eyes and gain preferment.’
‘You tolerate this?’
‘I must, for I need every piece of information they provide. It is my duty to sift through it all and find gems. But, this time, I cannot afford to be misdirected. Time is against her. If there is a killer, we must find him and fast, lest he strikes again. The men of the watch, the palace guards, my usual spies will all watch and listen as ever, but I want you, an ordinary man, to look into this matter for me, without fear or prejudice, and most quietly, mark you. Can you do that, Shakespeare?’
An ordinary man? How many times had he been called that over the years, and almost always by men like Sir Robert Cecil, or the earls who served the queen alongside him in the Privy Council, as well as the other nobles of the court, even some of his fellow actors and writers. And it was true. Will was ordinary. He was not tall, nor particularly fair, nor was he the best actor in his company, or the best singer, dancer or swordsman. He was in all aspects ordinary, apart from being a better than normal user of words.
Will knew Cecil was right. Most of those lords did indeed want to see Cecil fall, especially now that his father was no longer there to protect him. They might have been natural allies. Both were outsiders in a world where being born rich and grand, and looking fair, were all that really mattered. Cecil was looked down upon in a literal sense too, for he was very short, certainly not handsome and had been born with that crooked back, which most assumed was a punishment from God.
‘I shall do my best, as always, to please my lord,’ Will answered while secretly dreading the thought of serving Robert Cecil again, but knowing he had little choice.
‘Seek the truth and report back to me, but do it quickly. Walsingham used to say he could smell an intrigue. I cannot, but there is at least the whiff of one here. That lady likely did not fall, which must mean she was pushed or thrown, unless…’ He seemed reluctant to state the only remaining possibility: that she took her own life on that staircase. ‘We need to know who killed her and why?’
‘My lord.’
That seemed to placate Cecil and he switched his attention to Will’s own circumstances. ‘I hear it goes well with you, Master Shakespeare. They say you bought the finest property in Stratford.’
‘The second finest.’
‘Oh, then why not the finest?’
‘He wouldn’t sell it to me.’ Will would have liked to have bought the finest house in his hometown, to show how far he had come in the world, but had to settle for the second best. ‘My lord, you are more learned than I and have loyal followers.’ Will meant Cecil’s network of spies, who seemed to be everywhere. ‘What think you of Lady Anne’s death? Why would someone set out to kill one so young and innocent.’
‘Her innocence is assumed, but there are many corrupting influences at court. So-called gentlemen take great sport from undoing ladies-in-waiting and caring not if they fall. They brag of it even. I suspect the Lady Anne was too chaste for them or their like, but it is always possible that a young, unworldly girl might have believed the honeyed words of a dishonourable man, if he talked of love and promised marriage. It has happened before.’
‘You think she left her bed that night to meet a lover?’ There were always rumours of such things.
‘It is one explanation.’
‘There are others?’
‘That is for you to find out, Shakespeare, but when men kill, outside of battle, they almost always do it for the same reasons: love, lust, money, power, hatred or revenge. This you already know, since you write about all of that in your plays, do you not?’
‘But why would anyone hate the Lady Anne or wish to seek revenge against her? Did she have rivals at court?’
‘Everyone does,’ he said flatly. ‘Find out.’
‘You mentioned power and money. Would killing a girl lead a man to either?’
Cecil’s eyes locked on his for a moment. ‘That would depend.’
‘On what?’
‘On whether the Lady Anne had a secret perhaps, and what value knowledge of it might bring. Use that writer’s imagination of yours to picture a scene in which some unknown person might have seized that maiden and thrown her from the balustrade to her death.’
‘I will try.’
‘Then think more on it and find me the reason why some godless soul would commit such a terrible act against such a blameless lady.’
‘Blameless?’
‘Whatever caused this, it was not by her doing. She was too innocent to have had willing involvement in anything that could have justified her death.’
‘You’re sure of that.’
‘William Wade searched Lady Anne’s belongings but found no letters, cyphers or forbidden books.’
This was the second time Cecil had mentioned William Wade. From what Will had heard at court, Cecil trusted the man to carry out more and more of his orders with the Secretary of State’s customary ruthlessness. He was far more of a gentleman than Poley, too, and able to move in more exalted circles, but if you crossed Wade, got in his way, or were suspected of being an agent of a foreign power, the end result would be the same and you likely would not live to rue that day.
‘I did know that lady,’ Cecil said then. ‘It is not just that she was young and fair.’ He seemed genuinely affected from recalling the girl now. ‘I have known many women in this court. They come, they serve the queen for a time, then they go. All are beautiful, but that is no guarantee of a good or kindly heart. Most are quick to make sport of me, as if I asked God for this condition, or are in some way deserving of it. They call me pygmy, and other names. I have heard them all before, of course, many times and care not. They hurt me when I was young, but now…’ He made a dismissive pah sound, as if a man of great power could no longer be wounded by a personal affront, but Will found he did not believe him. ‘The Lady Anne never took part in that sport, nor did she act towards me as if I was sent here by the devil. Here was a gentle lady, with a kind and goodly heart who declined to join the other ladies-in-waiting when they called me a crookback and a toad, nor did she think me unworthy of a smile. I will not forget her for that.’
Cecil turned his back on Will then, ostensibly to look out of his window, but Will got the impression he was hiding his emotion. He gave his master a moment, then asked a question, as much to extricate them from the awkward scene as anything else.
‘Did anyone see or hear anything that night?’
‘Only a serving girl, who claimed to.’ Cecil was dismissive.
‘May I speak to her.’
‘That would do you no good. Wade already questioned her and cursed the time he wasted.’
‘What did she see?’
‘The devil himself.’ Cecil laughed bitterly at this notion. ‘She swears she saw him leaving the scene of this terrible crime.’
‘She saw the devil?’ Will rather doubted that. ‘What did he look like?’
He shrugged. ‘Pointed horns, a tail and hooves.’
‘She said this?’
Cecil sounded impatient. ‘I am assuming that if she thought she saw the devil and not some mortal man, that she would have described him thus. We all know what the devil looks like. Still, it matters not what shape he took if he did this or tempted a mortal man to enact his bidding. He is the father of lies, and his presence in this court and elsewhere in the realm is always assumed, so we must all be forever on our guard.’
‘And what did Wade say of this servant?’ Will wondered why he had been so disdainful of her account, since most at court generally accepted that the devil was often among them.
‘He said she was young, no more than fourteen, unworldly and may or may not have seen what she thought she saw. She was most terrified by the spectacle of the figure she encountered as she looked up from her bed, upon hearing what she took to be a scream, presumably from the Lady Anne, for this was at the hour of her death.’
‘Did he find her believable?’
‘He thought she told the truth as she saw it, but, if it was the devil fleeing the scene, then how will this benefit us? We can hardly follow him into the pits of hell to question him further.’
‘I can see the problem. But tell me, what is her name?’
‘Her name is Agnes Hogg,’ said Cecil.
Agnes thought Will, coming from the Greek word Hagnḗ, meaning holy or pure. It was always his habit to recall the origins of a woman’s name, usually to charm her, but not this time.
‘But I command you not to waste your time on her,’ Cecil told him.
‘And why not, my lord, since you seek the truth?’
‘One: she is a woman; two: she is of low station, and finally: she is very young. So her account of what she saw cannot be trusted on three counts, nor is it of any consequence if all she saw was Satan.’
All three charges Cecil levelled against the witness, of being young, female and of low birth would, of course, count against her when set against the word of a man. But wasn’t she the only witness they had? Will would have liked to have at least spoken to the girl, but Wade had already done so and dismissed her. Will doubted that the devil himself had appeared at the palace, to roam its corridors before killing one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting. He was in no position to argue with Sir Robert about it, however, and he let this go.
‘I do not know if murder has been committed here, much less have reason to go to the queen for permission to test a man.’ By ‘test’, Cecil meant torture, and it seemed that even he still needed the queen’s blessing for such an extreme course of action. ‘But this court has become infested by vice.’ He announced then: ‘It is riddled with recusants, pederasts, sodomites and blasphemers. Some of them seek daily to bring down our queen and replace her with a foreign, papist monarch. I will not allow that. Make your enquiries and, mark me well, look to the supposed great men of the court. There are four in particular who are at the heart of every intrigue. One of them might very well be responsible for the death of this lady.’
