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through my fingers into the dust where it belongs.”
    Boltfoot Cooper was behind Topcliffe now, wrenching at his elegant green satin doublet, dragging him backwards toward the door as Shakespeare pushed from the man’s front. Topcliffe was laughing all the while, prodding at Shakespeare with his blackthorn. “This house, this maggoty den of Papistry, is no longer protected, Shakespeare. Walsingham is cold in his grave and no one will look out for you. When you are dead, your child and Woode’s orphan spawn will be taken to Bridewell and handed to the taskmaster to have the Antichrist’s demons flogged out of them forever.”
    Topcliffe was strong, but Boltfoot was powerful, too, and with Shakespeare’s assistance he soon had the intruder out on the front step. Not that he put up much resistance, for he had said what he came to say and he had other business to attend to. Even as he strode away for the barge to Greenwich, his dark good humor was evident in his cruel face; he had the prize he had waited six years to secure and he would bask in his sovereign’s favor.
    Shakespeare watched him walk away along Dowgate, then went inside and slammed the door shut. He was shaking. Catherine eyed him coldly.
    “You see what you have brought us to, Mistress Shakespeare?” he said. “You see what peril you bring to this household?”
    For a few moments, they stood facing each other like two fighting fowls about to be let loose with spurred talons. “Mr. Shakespeare,” she said sharply. “A man whom I am proud to call friend has been taken by that brute and you shout at me . He willdestroy his body and use all his power to break his soul, and he will have the full panoply of this heretic government behind him. It is said in the marketplace, where none talk of aught else, that the Queen danced for joy this morning when word reached her of Father Southwell’s arrest.”
    “Then you must see the danger, madam. He had a chart of your family in Yorkshire with their Papist leanings ringed in ink. He meant to snare you. That is what we are dealing with.”
    She pushed a hand back sharply across her long dark hair. “I have had enough of this dissembling, attending your preposterous church on fear of a fine. I will have no more of it. You can keep your pseudo-religion, sir, with its pseudo-bishops and sham ministers and a sovereign who arrogantly places herself above God’s vicar on earth. Why, I expect she will pass an act of supremacy over God himself next. Good-day to you, sir.” Without waiting for a reply, she swept into the house and out of her husband’s sight.
    Shakespeare wanted to follow her, but it was pointless. This storm, if it was to pass, would not be calmed by harsh words. He still felt angry. He had been right all along. A trap had been set for Southwell, and Catherine had almost walked into it. But who was behind it? A suspicion was clawing at the back of his mind, scratching like a terrier’s paws at the earth. The name McGunn would not go away.
    He looked at the squat figure of his man, Boltfoot Cooper, as if he might find some solution to his problems there. But Boltfoot had his own concerns: Jane, his wife, was heavy with child, and they had already lost their firstborn at birth.
    Boltfoot did not smile. His rugged face was weather-beaten into permanent lines and creases, set hard like the furrows on oak bark, the reward of many years at sea.
    “I am going for some air, Boltfoot. Remember, spend time with Jane. One disconsolate wife in a household is more than enough.”
    Outside, he walked by the river. A light breeze brought some relief from the sun, now high in a cloudless sky. He looked east toward the bridge and watched the cormorants fishing.
    A man appeared at his elbow. “At least the waterbirds keep cool, do they not, sir?”
    Shakespeare turned toward the voice. It came from a man of advanced years, perhaps fifty, with a generous face beneath a thinning pate of white hair. Shakespeare knew