Free Holy Spy by Rory Clements

Tuns last month.’
    Shakespeare studied Babington’s two companions: Chidiock Tichbourne and Thomas Salisbury. They had both been at the feast, his closest friends.
    ‘Can you walk unaided?’
‘Yes. Please, I entreat you, pay me no more heed.’
They released his arms and he took a couple of paces, but caught the side of his foot on a cobble and stumbled into the archway wall.
‘Come on, you’re coming with us.’
    ‘No . . .’
    ‘We will brook no argument. Thomas lodges near here. We will help you there and put you to bed until you have regained your balance.’
    Shakespeare no longer had the strength to argue. And somewhere in the deep recesses of his befuddled mind, he realised that he would rather like to see inside the quarters of the treacherous Thomas Salisbury.

Chapter 9
     
    Boltfoot spent all evening limping around the taprooms and bawdy houses of Billingsgate and eastward until he was outside the city walls at Whitechapel, and from there to the river, listening to the talk where he could and striking up conversations when possible, which was not often. Most men and women shunned him.
    He wondered whether his method of introducing the subject of Kat and the murder was a little too blunt, but he had no idea what else to do. His master had asked him to listen in to conversations before, but this was different; he wasn’t merely gathering tittle-tattle but trying to steer the subject of the conversation – and looking for certain people.
    ‘That’s a fine old tale about the merchant getting himself murdered by order of his strumpet wife,’ he said to one whore in the Burning Prow, down by the wharfs at St Katharine’s.
    ‘Aye, and what’s it to you?’ she replied, looking at him with a cunning, rheumy eye.
    Boltfoot was uncertain whether she was measuring him up for her stinking bed or a coffin. At least you wouldn’t catch the pox in a coffin. ‘Just saying it’s a fine old tale,’ he continued. ‘Like a story from the Old Testament. It’s poor Will Cane I feel for, getting caught up in the middle. Got his neck stretched and she’s escaped like a sprite. Or a witch. Sounds like a witch, I’d say.’
    ‘Do you want to stick it in or don’t you? If you do, it’ll cost a shilling. If you want frigging, it’s sixpence, coin upfront. And if you don’t, then stow you, for I’m not here to discuss the weather and the tides.’ She was busy picking a scab from her face as she spoke and exuded an unwholesome smell. A man would have to be desperate or drunk.
    ‘All I want’s some friendly chatter to pass the night,’ protested Boltfoot. ‘I’ll get you a gage of cider for your company.’
    ‘I don’t want your cider and I don’t want your company. You’re an ugly brute and if you’re not a buyer, you can take your mangy foot and get out of my sight before I cripple the other one.’ She signalled to the bawd at the door, a younger woman with a pretty smile and businesslike eyes. ‘Here, Em, get the lads to throw this sheepshit out. Shove him in a pile of nightsoil to sweeten him up.’
    The woman at the door strolled over. She was a lot more appetising than the trug he had been trying to engage in conversation. She gazed at Boltfoot, then nodded to the whore. ‘No need for trouble, Aggy. He’ll go peaceful, won’t you?’ She put her hand on his upper arm and began guiding him towards the door. Boltfoot tried to shake off her hand, but her grip tightened. ‘Be friendly, then no one’ll get hurt.’
    ‘I only wanted to buy her a drink and talk a while.’
    ‘You look like a mariner. Go up the street to the Topsail Arms. You’ll get talk a-plenty there. The Burning Prow is for them as wants a little spice with their beer.’ With her free hand she opened the door and pushed him out. ‘Go kindly and you’ll be doing yourself a favour, Mr Mariner.’ She moved her red lips close to his ear. ‘Come back with half a crown when you want to jostle and jumble and I’ll find you a