Shakespeare's Rebel by C.C. Humphreys Read Free Book Online Page B

fence.’
    ‘Rumour says that unlike his true and loyal servants e’en now rallying to his standard, John Lawley skulks in taverns to avoid his duty,’ Sir Samuel sneered.
    John smiled. ‘ “Skulks”?’ he echoed. ‘Well, rumour is just that. Whereas the earl will likely remember who was at his right shoulder when he stormed the walls of Cadiz . . . and who was in a ship’s hold, shitting in a bucket.’
    It didn’t help that Tomkins, the eldest lout, tried to conceal a laugh within a sneeze. The blow struck, and the high-pitched voice pitched higher. ‘I had the flux,’ Sir Samuel squealed. ‘All know that!’
    ‘All know that flux wastes a body. And that you returned to England fatter than when you set out.’
    Sir Samuel’s face had gone a strange colour, and he reached for his neck folds as if he did not have enough air. It was Tess who spoke for him. ‘Enough, John. Go now.’
    ‘Not until I have seen my son.’ He took a step towards her, lowering his voice. ‘Tess, for pity’s sake. He plays before the Queen in a few hours. If he must assume the rank of gentleman, let him do so tomorrow at the least. Do not let the name of Lawley—’
    The choking man had recovered enough to bleat. ‘His name will be D’Esparr,’ he said. ‘D’Esparr, I tell you. And he will not disgrace it in consorting with scum.’ He gripped the railings before him. ‘Her majesty will have to be disappointed – as will Master Burbage when he has to find another pair of buttocks to plunder!’ His voice rose higher to little less than a shriek. ‘The son of Sir Samuel D’Esparr will not a base player be! And you, sirrah’ – he jabbed a finger down – ‘I will not insult the earl whose man you profess to be by giving you the thrashing you deserve. But I will call the Bankside Watch and have you placed in the stocks for trespass! Call them! Call them!’
    Froth was falling on to the men below, as if the vast and pallid orange fruit Sir Samuel had resolved into was being squeezed. At Tomkins’s nod, the youth ran up the stairs and passed the raving knight into the tavern. ‘Go, John,’ whispered Tess. ‘Think of me and not him. If you have ever loved me, go now.’
    It was a sharper weapon than any man there possessed. John looked at Tess, sighed. She was a battle he would fight another day. There was a more pressing need now.
    ‘I go, lady,’ he murmured. ‘But I vow I will return.’
    ‘Do not . . .’ she called, but to his back, for he was already slipping the bolts on the garden gate. Without a backward glance he was through, pursued by insults, which faded as he ran down the alley, turned right onto the street and sharply into the first doorway – of a well-known brothel, Holland’s Leaguer. He had done the abbess a few favours in the past and so was known, and admitted by the doorman without question. Some lolling trulls called to him but he ignored them, took the flights to the upper floor, climbed the ladder into the attic. There was only one reason he frequented the house, and he made use of it now.
    Pushing open a hinged wooden casement, he looked at the one opposite, only a long arm’s reach away in the eaves of the Spoon and Alderman. ‘Ned!’ he called softly. ‘Are you there? Ned?’
    A latch was lifted. John smiled. It was fortunate he did so with his mouth closed, for it was not a face that appeared but a bucket; flung, or at least its contents were. Failing to dodge anything that came his way hardly mattered on that cloak. ‘And good to see you too,’ he said, keeping his eyes shut as liquid slid over them.
    It appeared that his son was displeased with him.
    ‘Oh, is that you, Father?’ Ned replied. ‘Alack, I thought I heard a familiar rat in our gutters that will ever be gnawing at them.’
    No apology, no true attempt at a lie. On that angel’s face, caught between his parentage, her green eyes under his black thatch, there was a studied innocence, one that would read in the