Free The Queen's Man by Rory Clements

could not.
    ‘What you looking at, friend?’
    Boltfoot turned at the voice. A man in a torn smock had come up behind him. He held the bridle of a bullock harnessed to a long, heavy wagon.
    ‘I’m looking at the wall,’ said Boltfoot. ‘Folks that built those walls knew what they were about.’
    ‘Aye, that they did,’ said the carter. ‘Strong enough to keep the Scots fartleberry locked away where she do belong. You new to these parts, friend?’
    ‘I travel with my master. He has business in the castle. Told me to bide my time out here.’
    ‘What’s his business?’
    ‘His business is his own and I am not at liberty to divulge it.’
    The carter laughed. ‘You want to be careful folks don’t take you for a spy. This town is riddled with spies of every shade. More spies in Sheffield than you’ll find weevils in a hundredweight of grain. Looking too closely at castle walls could cost a man his liberty and his head hereabouts.’
    Boltfoot weighed the man up. ‘Spies? What they spying on?’
    The carter shrugged. ‘Each other mostly, I reckon. They can spy on each other all they want for all I care. The innkeepers are happy, too, because they bring London gold to Sheffield town.’
    ‘So how would you get in the castle?’
    ‘That’s easy. Just drive in with provender. Carts like mine go in and out all day and sometimes at night, too. They got a hundred or more horses in the stables. Those beasts need a lot of feed day by day. Then there’s the guards and the fartleberry’s own crew to be provided for . . .’ The man tailed off and looked at Boltfoot more closely. ‘Now enough of your questions or I’ll begin to think you are a spy . . .’
    Boltfoot grunted. ‘Who’d have a cripple like me as a spy?’
    ‘True enough, friend, true enough. Now with your leave, I’ll be on my way.’ The carter tugged on the bridle and the bullock lumbered on after him, leaving Boltfoot staring thoughtfully in their wake.
    S hakespeare reckoned the castle walls enclosed four or five acres of land. Many of the buildings within its confines were lodging chambers of varying degrees, the rest storehouses, kitchens, workshops, arsenal and stables. He would need to ask Shrewsbury for a chart, because the many narrow ginnels and dead-ends did not seem planned. The buildings must have been altered and added to on numerous occasions by different owners in the past three hundred years.
    ‘A man could get lost in here, Mr Topcliffe,’ Shakespeare said as they rounded yet another corner in what had seemed a blind alley.
    ‘Indeed, he could. It’s no place to keep the heifer. I’d put her in Newgate, and then take her to Paddington Green for despatching.’
    ‘On what charge?’
    ‘Plotting the overthrow of our own Royal Majesty, whose favour and love I do value above pearls of the orient.’
    ‘Plotting the Queen’s overthrow? Do you know of some conspiracy then?’
    ‘There is always a conspiracy when one or more popish beast is gathered together. I tell you this: the matter of the Frenchie will not be without blood.’
    ‘So you do think Mary should be moved from here?’
    ‘Don’t you , Shakespeare?’
    ‘Yes, I do. But from your fears that I might impugn the earl’s reputation, I had thought you might be happy with the present arrangements.’
    ‘My friend George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, has done his duty. His health and wealth are brought low from keeping this foul woman in his home. No man has done the realm greater service. He deserves a rest, for he will not live long elsewise. I tell you, Shakespeare, he has aged twenty years in these past ten. It is only the love and favours of Mistress Britten that save his sanity, for his marriage to Bess, who is also my good friend, is now a bitter wreck. And so, yes, I wish the Scots heifer away from here, but in doing so, I do not want George slandered.’
    ‘Then I think we are almost agreed, Mr Topcliffe.’
    By now they were close to Mary Stuart’s