The Heretics (2 page)

‘How is he faring, Mr Keeper?’

‘He does well, master. Never have I met so rare a man.’

Shakespeare turned and pushed back his hat to look into the keeper’s eyes, gratified by what he saw there: honesty and genuine affection. He was not surprised; the condemned prisoner had that effect on many people. Shakespeare held the keeper’s gaze. ‘Where is he? In Limbo?’

The keeper nodded, a pained expression curling his lips. Limbo was a dark pit in the lower reaches of the ancient gaol, lacking light and air, where the condemned prepared themselves for the hangman. Its meagre bedding of straw was clogged with the ordure of frightened men.

‘But at least he is alone there, master. No other felons await death.’

‘Bring him to an upper cell. Let him breathe before he dies.’

‘Mr Topcliffe commanded me, master—’

‘Damn, Mr Topcliffe. I am here under orders from Sir Robert Cecil. Bring the prisoner up.’

The keeper hesitated, but then uttered some sort of grunt and shuffled off into the rank depths of the gaol. Shakespeare pulled his hat back over his brow and waited.

Within a minute, the keeper returned. ‘I have ordered him brought to a cell on the second floor. I will take you there now. You will not be disturbed.’

The single window was barred by a grating of iron rods, embedded into the stone walls. It was a small aperture, scarcely big enough to admit the last of the day’s light. The cell was clean and the cold air as fresh as could be hoped for in such a dungeon.

Shakespeare had not seen Father Robert Southwell in eight years and the passage of time had not treated him well. The years of solitary confinement in the Tower and episodes of torture at the hands of Richard Topcliffe had broken his body. His once serene face was now gaunt and his slender back bent, yet his eyes shone in the grey light. It seemed to Shakespeare that he had the exquisite fragility of church glass.

Southwell, his palms together in prayer, sank to his knees at the sight of his visitor, but Shakespeare raised him to his feet and clasped his hands. He turned to the gaoler, still hovering by the iron-strapped door. ‘Bring us a flagon of good wine, Mr Keeper.’ He dug fingers in his purse and pulled out a coin. ‘That will pay for it.’

The keeper bowed and departed, leaving the door open.

‘I could overpower you, Mr Shakespeare, and make my escape.’

Shakespeare smiled at the sad jest. Southwell would be hard pressed to do battle with a kitten.

‘Shall we sit down, Father?’

There was a table and three stools, but the condemned Jesuit shook his head and continued to stand. His breathing was fast. Thin trails of vapour shot from his mouth and nose and vanished in the cold air. ‘There is time enough for these bones to rest.’

‘Are you being treated well?’

‘I count the keeper as my friend. Many good people have sent in offerings of food and he has brought it to me, along with their messages of support. I never ate so well in the Tower as I do here.’

‘Well, that is something at least.’

‘Their generosity of spirit gladdens my heart, Mr Shakespeare. And on the matter of kindness, will you not tell me of your beloved wife, Catherine? You have a child, I believe.’

Shakespeare stiffened. Long before he had met Catherine in the year of eighty-seven, she had been a friend of Southwell and had received the sacraments from him. But now Catherine lay in her grave.

Southwell saw his pain. ‘I am sorry. I see I intrude on some grief. Is she with God?’

‘I must pray that she is.’

‘Forgive me, I had not heard of your great loss, Mr Shakespeare. In the Tower, I heard nothing of the world beyond my four walls. I loved Catherine as a daughter or sister. I will pray for you both . . . and the child.’

‘The child is well. She is called Mary. Catherine did not suffer . . .’

Shakespeare’s voice broke and he shuddered, for the word resonated icily in this room.
Suffer.
He knew what agonies Southwell would have to suffer on the morrow. Convicted of treason at the court of Queen’s Bench this day, he would be collected from his cell at dawn and dragged on a hurdle along the jarring road to Tyburn. There he would be hanged in front of a crowd of thousands, then cut down while he lived so that the butchers could tear his belly open and rip out his entrails to burn before his eyes. And at last, he would be quartered and beheaded.

Southwell noticed his visitor’s unease. ‘I think you are right, Mr Shakespeare. I will sit down. Come, sit with me. There are things I must tell you, though I am sure you are a busy man. Does Mr Cecil know you are here?’

‘Yes, Sir Robert knows.’

‘Ah – so he has been knighted. You see, I hear nothing. Well, I am sure it is deserved. He is my cousin, you know.’

‘Yes, I know that. And I know that he admires your courage, if not your religion. And I can tell you, in confidence, that the Queen also knows I am here. She wishes to be told the contents of your heart. She wishes to know why one so holy and poetical should strive to bring about the destruction of her estate.’

Southwell frowned, as if he did not comprehend the question. ‘I fear she has been fed falsehoods. I never meant the destruction of Her Majesty, nor any harm to England. I sought nothing but the eternal good of souls, including hers. Even now I call on the Lord God to enlighten her, and her Council, and not to hold them guilty for my death.’

‘But your Church excommunicated her. The Jesuits support invasion by Spain—’

‘Many errors have been made on all sides, Mr Shakespeare. You may tell Her Royal Majesty that I honour her as my sovereign lady. I have prayed for her daily.’

‘I will tell her. Is that why you asked me to come here, Father?’

The keeper arrived with the wine and two goblets. Setting a tallow rushlight on the table between Shakespeare and the condemned man, he bowed and backed away to the door, without a word. Again, he left the door open. Shakespeare poured the wine.

‘He watches and listens, Mr Shakespeare,’ Southwell said quietly. ‘He fears I will take my own life. He has been ordered to keep me alive so that my death is witnessed as a warning to others.’ Southwell reached out and grasped Shakespeare’s arm in his thin fingers. ‘Did you ever hear of a Catholic priest that hurt himself so? Why should we add the destruction of our souls to the demise of our bodies?’

Shakespeare understood. He sipped his wine and waited.

‘And so to your question. I asked for you, Mr Shakespeare, because there is something I must beg of you. One favour. If you will do this one thing for me, then I may go to my death in peace in the hope that I will be saved by the Passion of our Lord, Jesus Christ.’

‘Then you had better tell me what it is, Father.’

The priest sighed, closed his eyes for a moment, then spoke, little more than a whisper. ‘There is a girl, Mr Shakespeare. A girl named Thomasyn Jade. I want you to find her.’

Shakespeare got up and walked to the door. A figure shrank back into the passageway beyond. Shakespeare shut the door, then returned to sit at the table.

‘This harks back nine years to the dangerous days of summer in eighty-six,’ Southwell said, his voice still low. ‘It can be no secret to you that I was newly arrived in England, for I know that you were then working for Mr Secretary Walsingham, and his spies had told him of my coming.’

Shakespeare nodded. He recalled all too well those feverish, fearful days and weeks. It was the time of the Babington plot that had led to the downfall of Mary, Queen of Scots, and brought so many foolish young Catholic men to the scaffold, condemned for plotting to assassinate Elizabeth and put Mary on her throne.

‘Within a month of my arrival the so-called plotters and others had been rounded up. Some were racked, many were executed. Among those held was Father William Weston of the Society of Jesus.’

‘I know all this.’

London had been a cacophonous circle of the inferno. The bells of the city churches pealed all day long and into the night; the streets were ablaze with fires celebrating that the plot had been uncovered and foiled. And on the river, an endless procession of captured conspirators and priests was carried upstream, bound hand and foot, from the baleful Tower to the courts at Westminster, and then drawn to the place of execution. It had seemed as though the slaughter would never abate.

‘Indeed, Mr Shakespeare. And I am sure, too, that you will know of the other dark events that occurred in those months, when certain Catholic priests carried out exorcisms on unfortunate souls possessed by demons.’

Shakespeare’s mouth turned down in distaste. It had been a disgusting affair. Young women and men had been held for days and weeks on end, being subjected to the most repulsive treatment by a group of priests and their acolytes, all in the name of ridding them of supposed demons. Many who had been sympathetic to the popish cause had been turned against it by the whole foul story.

‘Yes, I remember it, Father Robert, for I spoke with Weston himself, but I believe the practice stopped at about the time of your arrival in England.’

The priest’s eyes were downcast. His fine features brought to mind the name he had been given by the townsfolk of Douai in Flanders when he had attended the English College there as a young man:
the beautiful English youth
. That youth was now long gone, worn away by pain and deprivation, yet Shakespeare could still see the strange, troubling beauty in his soul.

‘Yes, the exorcisms were halted. But much damage had already been done, and not just to the Catholic cause. The real victims, I fear, were some of those whom the priests were trying to help.’

‘Was Thomasyn Jade one of them?’

‘She was. It is no secret now that I met my Jesuit brother William Weston soon after my arrival and not long before his arrest. I did not know it at first, but it seems he was the prime mover of these exorcism rites. We travelled together to a house in Buckinghamshire – I will not tell you more than that – to confer and rest. We stayed there a week. During that time, a girl of seventeen or eighteen – Thomasyn – was brought to us by certain priests to be rid of devils. She had already undergone many more such ordeals at Denham House, near by, which, as you must know, was the centre of these goings-on.

‘I watched in horror as the ritual was played out. She was stuck with pins to catch the devils beneath her skin and she was made to drink concoctions of herbs. The holy thumb of the martyr Campion was thrust in her mouth. Brimstone was burnt beneath her nose so that I believed she would choke to death. I was affronted, Mr Shakespeare, for I saw that those who did these things were in mortal error. Those who witnessed the events were struck with such fear that they quaked and trembled and wept most bitterly. Within a short while, I brought the ceremony to a halt and, though Father Weston was my superior, I advised him that he would do well never to partake in such things again.’

Shakespeare was surprised to hear Southwell voice such open criticism of a fellow of the same order.

The priest waved his hand. ‘Do not misunderstand me. I have nothing but admiration for the work and ministry of Father Weston. He is a saintly man. Perhaps too saintly sometimes, too unworldly. He did what he did out of fine motives, trying to save souls. But he was misguided in subscribing to the rite of exorcism, nor am I alone among the Catholic fraternity in thinking this way. I have sometimes wondered since whether the simple fact of his failing eyesight might have made him easily deluded by others less honest. I do not believe he saw evil spirits under the girl’s skin, nor do I believe he truly saw them coming from her mouth and . . .’ He hesitated, scarce able to say the shameful words. ‘And from her privy parts. But
he
believed he did.’

‘Why do you want me to find the girl?’

‘Because she was ill used by us. When she came to the house, she was shaking with fear; she was halfway mad with frenzy and weeping. I should never have allowed the exorcism to proceed as far as it did.’

‘And what became of her at the end of the day’s torments?’

‘She was given cordials and food, and I spoke soothing words to her. I tried to discover more about her, but she could not speak. I tried to pray with her, but she became yet more distressed. I was at a loss. I did not know what to do for her. With five sisters of my own, I understand women’s ways, but I am aware that the years among men at the Society colleges have made me less easy in their company. Thomasyn could not stay at that house and I could not take her with me. Instead she was taken away by the priests who had brought her, back to the house near by whence she had come.’

‘Denham House?’

‘Indeed.’

Shakespeare gave a wry smile. He had heard much about Denham House, a putrid place, a dark hole of corruption and wickedness.

‘I fear I did not do well by her, Mr Shakespeare. Three weeks later the priests who housed her were themselves arrested, as was Father Weston. Thomasyn Jade was taken away by the pursuivants, but her story reached certain courtiers and she was soon freed into the care of a great Protestant lady, the Countess of Kent. It was hoped that she would undo the priests’ efforts to reconcile the wretched girl to the Church of Rome, and take her back to Protestantism. But within a few days I heard that she had disappeared. I prayed for her every day and worried for her, for she was an afflicted young woman and in need of proper care and spiritual nourishment. I sought her as best I could, but in the year of ninety-two, as you know, I was myself arrested. I have heard nothing of her since. Her memory haunts me, and I cannot go easily to my death.’

‘And if I find her?’

‘My family and friends have set aside money on her behalf. They will be as godparents to her and she will be well cared for. There is nothing sinister, no more exorcisms. Nor will they seek to influence her choice of faith. I ask only that you find her . . . if she is alive.’

‘Why should I do this for you, Father Southwell? You came to England as a traitor. Since then you have longed for martyrdom. You must see that you are my enemy.’

Robert Southwell crossed himself. ‘You know that is not so, Mr Shakespeare.’