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reddened. How did he know that? She nodded.
    ‘Why not tell me? I may be able to help.’
    She hesitated. He waited. At last she nodded and spoke what was on her mind. ‘I want another baby, Dr Forman. I am scared I’ll lose little John and never have another.’
    ‘You won’t lose little John, I promise you. I have often seen children in this poor way and I have never lost one. I shall give you a tincture of herbs for the boy. But it’s you that I’m most worried for, Jane Cooper. Have you had many shifts?’
    She closed her eyes and looked down. ‘I have miscarried six,’ she said quietly. ‘Maybe seven. The last one just three months past.’
    ‘Does your husband know?’
    ‘He knows of the shifts, though not all of them. I cannot truly tell him all my fears. We lost our first at birth and I thought Boltfoot would die of torment. He blames himself, you see, because he is lame with a club-foot. He believes it is his bad blood that damages the unborn babes.’
    ‘So you want me to help you bring a babe to term.’ Forman spoke slowly. ‘And are you presently with child?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Well, the first thing I must do is cast your chart. It would help, too, if I could have the date and time and place of your husband’s birth so that I may cast his, too.’
    Forman smiled and handed the child back to his mother. He walked through to an adjoining room. Through the open door, Jane could see strange objects on shelves. Large glass jars and small vials, like those to be seen at the apothecary’s shop. There were other curious things: rolled papers and parchments, books, something that looked like a dead animal or a demon. She averted her eyes. Her heart was rushing like the conduit.
    Forman returned and handed her a twist of paper. ‘Take this in the evening and again tomorrow morning, then return to me in four days. All will be well, Jane Cooper.’

Chapter 5
    J OHN S HAKESPEARE SURPRISED himself. He was hungry. On the way back to London from Tyburn, he and Boltfoot stopped at a busy post inn, sat in a booth and tucked into sirloins of beef that overlapped their trenchers, with half a loaf each of manchet bread. They ate it all and downed quart tankards of strong beer.
    They did not talk. What was there to say? Instead, they just ate, drank, pissed in the gutter outside, then remounted and rode for Dowgate. Their morning’s work was done. As commanded by the Queen, they had ensured that Robert Southwell had not suffered unduly.
    Back at Dowgate, Shakespeare asked whether he had had any visitors, but no one had called. He tried to shrug it off. So Garrick Loake was a time-waster. And yet there had been a quiet desperation about Mr Loake that worried him and he resolved to seek him out when time permitted. For now, he ordered a fresh horse saddled up, then went to his chamber to wash the grime and dust from his face and hands. Perhaps, too, he was trying to wash away the memory of the brutal, unnecessary death of a poet.
    He found his daughter, Mary, and his adopted daughter, Grace, in the schoolroom with their tutor. Grace was growing into a fine girl. She was twelve years of age, tall like her brother, Andrew, but slender. She held little Mary’s hand and stroked her hair, as if she were the smaller girl’s mother.
    Shakespeare gazed on them for a few moments and said a silent prayer of thanks to God for this calm sanity and kindness at the centre of his life. Then he kissed them and left for his meeting with Cecil.
    Cecil’s mood had not improved. The Queen had kept him with her until the early hours and when, at last, he had been freed to go to bed, he had plainly not slept well. This morning he had risen with the dawn to ride for London.
    ‘You will make the obvious inquiries, John,’ he said to Shakespeare, waving him irritably to a chair. They were in the high-ceilinged meeting room of Sir Robert’s small mansion in the Strand. ‘Talk to the Countess of Kent, find the others who were subjected to