‘It is a mere shack. Like the rest.’
‘Go to, then. In the name of God, His son, and the Blessed Virgin, go to. These men are the enemies of King Philip and the true faith. Ensure that one is silenced and …’ he thought a moment. ‘Bring the other. Captive. We need only one to speak what he knows, lest they have by chance learned something we have not.’ He thought this unlikely. Probably they were a pair of vultures, flown in on the breath of rumour. Tales of missing treasure brought all manner of people, as he knew well enough. Treasure itself acted like a corpse to birds of prey.
Nicolas gave a hard nod. Howton noticed that he gave one last, twitchy look at Bess, who had remained mute throughout – as a woman should – before turning to leave.
Howton’s voice stopped him. ‘I pray you wait a moment, Fray Nicolas. Wait a while until they are deep in their slumber. You understand, if these men give you any trouble … if they make a great hue and cry … if they threaten to rouse this filthy place and its ill-bred lice … then silence them both. Dead men tell no tales but nor do they make delations.’ He gave a little burble of laughter. ‘God knows, in this England none care what becomes of university men.’
When the confessor had gone, Howton smiled. The foolish lad’s bones might soon have company.
7
Lewgar hadn’t clambered into the low bed beside Marlowe. Nor was he able to sleep on the lockram blanket he had wadded up and set down on the neat floorboards. His roommate had passed from a deep sleep to an interminable thrashing and grunting, rich in ‘uhs’ and ‘ahs’ and the occasionally mumbled swear word.
Lewgar had seen drunkenness before, though rarely. Occasionally, a group of students would go out into the town at Cambridge and come back roaring with it, unable to control their voices. There had been a minor, nasty scandal when one fellow had brought back a woman and attempted to smuggle her out in the morning dressed as a boy. More lightly, one first-year undergraduate with the unfortunate surname ‘Brewiss’ had become forever known as ‘Brew-piss’ after drunkenly wetting his bed.
It was a fool’s game, taking over-strong drink. That had always been his father’s advice, and good advice it was. There was an orderliness to drinking, as in all things: for the gentleman, wine; for the citizen, beer; for the prentice, nutmeg; for the countryman, ale; for the parson, water. Taking too much of any, or worse – drinking down what you oughtn’t – was a moral failing, an invitation to disorder. A man who got himself over-well tuddled, as his father put it, was envenoming not just his own body but the whole of the commonwealth.
‘To hell!’
Lewgar didn’t even start at Marlowe’s latest sodden oath, cast out on a burp.
He had been starting to warm to the fellow – not to like him, for he was far too volatile to be likable, like a dangerous chemical compound mixed by a wild apothecary – until the drink had taken him and revealed this strange, angry creature lurking beneath the outward smiles and charm. If there was one good thing about intoxicating liquor, it was its ability to reveal the inner self. Men who were inwardly happy or sad or angry would accordingly laugh or cry or rage furiously in their cups. When Marlowe’s humours were allowed free rein, they appeared to belie the genial creature he presented to the world in his sobriety. There was something hideous about it – about seeing a man so youthful looking wild and hateful with drink; it was vulgar, like seeing a child or a woman drunk.
He’ll come to no good end, thought Lewgar. That was what he’d always heard about men who gave in to drunkenness.
As Marlowe relapsed back into his stuttering snore, Lewgar turned his face to the wall. It was slate grey in the darkness, not unlike the sea which lay not far away. He turned away from it, his bones shuddering with each movement, and forced his eyes shut. Disobediently, they popped open. It must, he supposed, be long after midnight. A chill breeze found its way in through the sagging wooden shutters, lapping over his face and feeling its way below the blanket.
He wouldn’t sleep, he realised.
On the heels of the realisation came something else.
Snick.
Lewgar remained under the blanket, flat on the floor. A shiver ran through him. The sound had come from the front of the house – the front door, by the sound of it. Despite himself – cursing himself – he thought of ghostly sailors prowling the village, seeking justice. The common people’s fears and superstitions were infectious. Likely it was just old Gillingham, going outside to piss.
Soft whispering came to him – not voices, but of feet slipping over rushes.
Did village folk lock their doors? he wondered. Was thievery a problem on the fringes of England, where every man knew the next?
He fixed his eyes on the low ceiling, lost though it was in shadow.
A more concrete thud cracked through the house, seeming loud only because of the stillness. As it did, Lewgar realised two things: someone was at their door, and Marlowe’s stertorous snoring ceased, like a candleflame snuffed.
Thin creaking followed as the old slab was pushed open.
Lewgar held still, debating whether to call out – either to Gillingham or for him. Whoever had pushed open the door appeared to be standing in it: a thin, tall figure was etched in darkness by the weak light from the room beyond, which still glowed with the dying embers of the central hearth.
Time seemed to slow, to take on the quality of a strange dream. For an eternity, it seemed, the black figure stood framed in the doorway, watching. And then, wraith-like, it slid into the chamber, gliding towards the bed and the inert bump that was Marlowe.
Lewgar lay transfixed, paralysed with fear. As the creature bent low, he forced his tongue to his will. ‘Who goes there? G-goodman Gillingham?’
The intruder froze, still bent.
‘Is that you?’ Lewgar sat up as he spoke, throwing off the blanket.
And then the stranger was upon him, leaping across the floorboards, one arm held aloft. ‘Help!’ cried Lewgar. His voice, in his own ears, was strangulated.
He rolled to the side, just as the attacker lunged. A hollow thud told him that something had struck the floor or the wall. ‘Help!’ cried Lewgar again, more loudly. He jumped across the room, landing between the bed and the doorway, the grainy floorboards icy beneath his feet. ‘Mr Gillingham! We are attacked!’
The stranger said nothing. He had recovered his dagger – or whatever it was he carried – and wheeled. At the same time, Marlowe’s blanket flew across the room, covering him. The man fumbled with it.
‘Out! Damned knavish thundering prick!’ The little man’s voice was rich in furious abandon. Lewgar watched as he shot forward, like a cannonball, his head down, and barrelled into the man still wrestling with the blanket. Desperately, Lewgar felt around himself for something – anything – to use. His fingers clasped around the cold, smooth neck of an empty bottle lying beside the bed. He had no time to wonder how or when Marlowe had managed to sneak it – he lifted it and threw, as he might have cast a fishing line.
His reward was a dull thunk.
Their attacker groaned, whirling on the spot.
And then the air was filled with curses. ‘Fucking thief! Damned whoremonger whoreson poxed cunt!’ Marlowe, like a fool, appeared to be beating at the man with his fists as well as his foul words.
Getting too close, thought Lewgar, watching as though seeing a play from the safety of benches of the college’s hall. Stupid.
Released from the tangle of the blanket, the towering figure slashed downward with one arm and then pushed Marlowe away with the other. He fell backwards as easily as a doll might. Yet he made no cry – he did not even cease swearing. If anything, the rage in his voice intensified.
‘You whore-dog! Diseased prick-shaft! Come at me, dog! Come at me!’
Light poured into the chamber from the front room beyond.
‘What’s this?’ cried a new voice – Gillingham’s. The old man must have lit a brazier outside; he stood in the doorway, hesitant, his voice hard.
Everything seemed to stop, even Marlowe’s ranting.
And then, moving like liquid, the intruder sped through the room. He flew by Lewgar, who still stood by the bed. He loomed up before Gillingham; the old fellow yelped as a hard smack filled the chamber. And then the creature was gone. He must have realised he’d been outnumbered, that his plans – whatever they were – surely murder or thievery – had unravelled.
Lewgar remained rooted to the spot for a moment. It took him a few seconds to realise that Gillingham had disappeared and to understand that he’d fallen. Turning, he saw that Marlowe too was on his knees, grunting and breathing heavily, his rage spent.
‘I…’ Lewgar began. He hopped over to the old man first and bent, offering him a hand. He felt a warm, rough palm close over his fingers and hauled the fellow to his feet. Only then did he realise that his heart was running wild. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘Bin struck,’ said Gillingham. His face was pallid in the soft glow of the brazier. ‘Thief. Struck me.’ He raised his gnarled hand and began kneading his cheek.
Lewgar said nothing. Instead, he turned and stepped over to Marlowe. ‘And you?’
Marlowe made an inarticulate groan. And then he spat a phlegmatic gobbet. ‘Damned butchering bastard.’
Butchering?
‘Are – you – hurt – Marlowe?’
‘Mm-mm-mm.’
His head still spinning, Lewgar reached down and tugged on the man’s arm. This elicited a hiss. Turning, he said, ‘might – might we have light in here?’ He ignored Marlowe’s drunken muttering as Gillingham retreated, with his own grumbles, into the front room. He reappeared a moment later with a tallow candle fixed on a tin dish. Its reek invaded the air, but it gave off a cheerful enough pool of light.
Marlowe’s face was ashen, his Cupid’s bow mouth tight. One arm hung loose. A dark patch had spread across the sleeve of his grey shirt. ‘He has cut you!’ Lewgar made a grab for the injured arm, but Marlowe turned away sullenly. Immediately, a stream of curses filled the air.
Lewgar swallowed. And then he said, ‘listen to me, you fool. You have been wounded. Let me attend to it.’ He kept his voice clear and calm – it was the way he had spoken a thousand times in logical debates and exchanges, and it was rich in pure lecture hall authority. It had an effect. Marlowe twisted round to him, his eyes mean and catlike – but he held out the arm.
Quickly, Lewgar folded back the loose sleeve and assessed the damage. ‘It is not deep,’ he said. A thin, snaking trail of blood marked its passage from the outside of the wrist up to the elbow, with breaks here and there. With a grunt, he tore off a shred of the sleeve and began binding the wound. Marlowe did not object. Nor did he cry out. ‘That wine,’ said Lewgar as he worked, ‘must have dulled your pain as well as it has sharpened your tongue. A real lift-leg, it was.’ Some notion of cleaning the wound with water occurred to him – perhaps that was what he should have done? – but he decided to let it go. The fellow could do that himself if and when he sobered up. ‘There,’ he said, letting the twig of an arm drop. Marlowe tilted his head back; it bobbed loosely on his neck as he squinted down.
Throughout, Lewgar had been quite calm, eerily so. And then, all at once, the tranquillity vanished, like a mist burnt away by a shaft of sunlight.
All that had just happened had really happened.
A man had broken in upon their sleeping chamber and violently assailed them.
This was no strange dream, nor even a jape or prank played by a fellow student.
Someone had tried to kill them.
What, he wondered, had the damned fool Christopher Marlowe drawn him into?
With the dawning of realisation came an intense shivering. He shook his head, as if to deny the madness, and then turned to the doorway. Gillingham had stood there whilst he’d tended Marlowe, muttering to himself.
‘Who was that? What happened? What happened?’ Lewgar repeated. But the old man simply continued wittering.
‘Sir? A thief, sir, a thief.’
Lewgar blinked stupidly. ‘My apologies. Are you hurt?’
‘No, sir. He struck me. Knocked me flat. That’s all, as I said.’
‘Of … of course. Yes.’ He’d forgotten asking him that. ‘Did you see his face?’
‘I … no, sir. A tall man.’ Gillingham came forward again into the room. ‘Taller than your friend here.’ His tone changed. ‘Mr Tyndall, he said, didn’t he?’
Lewgar stared. Had he called Marlowe by his real name just now? He didn’t know. To be safe, he said, ‘yes. Mr Marlowe Tyndall of London. He is a respected gentleman of the city. If he has been attacked, we must know who made the attempt.’
Both froze as a new sound erupted. It was Marlowe’s snore; the creature had actually flopped onto his bed and gone to sleep. Clenching his jaw, Lewgar nudged him, none too gently, with his bare foot. This earnt him only a guttural ‘fuck off.’
‘A stranger,’ said Lewgar, addressing himself to Gillingham. ‘The alarm must go up. Some dangerous stranger has come to Wembury.’
Gillingham scratched at his belly; he too was in a loose nightshirt, his straining. ‘Only stranger come to town – saving yourselves – are thar rich folk. Thar rich master.’
‘What? Which rich folk? Who?’
Gillingham looked vaguely at the doorway to his front room. ‘Came some days since. Well, the master’s weeds and traps proclaimed ’em wealthy. A gentleman and his clerk, I s’posed ’em. And the gentleman’s wife, as I took ’er, with some low servants to attend ’em. The master, so ’e seemed, paid the Widow Benham a high price for the use of ’er grand ’ouse up on the rise. Only the clerk’s come down into the town since – to be rowed out to the wreck yonder, same as you fellers. And to fetch them all food and ale. But … but no … can’t say as rich folk’s’d creep about in the night and break into a poor ’ouse to beat and cut up the likes of us.’
Lewgar considered this, trying to make sense of it. It seemed that Marlowe’s initial friendliness – and probably his drunkenness – had endeared them to the old man and his people, reducing the pair to the level of honorary townsfolk. It seemed also that this rich master shared the two’s interest in the Sparrowhawk.
Did that give him motive to attack?
‘What,’ he asked, at length, ‘is the name of this wealthy fellow who has taken up lodging?’
‘Let me see, sir,’ said Gillingham. He made a show of remembering, squeezing his stubbled chin and frowning at nothing awhile. Perhaps, thought Lewgar, he was trying to work out whether it was a thing he should tell strangers, whether they were ‘the likes of us’ or not.
‘Howdern, I think.’ He leant heavily on the h, as though he had to summon up effort for it. ‘Ay, thar’s it, to be sure: Mr Howdern. Nor lord nor sir nor but good Mr Howdern, down from London. The clerk does his shifting for ’im. Served ’im ale myself. Don’t say much. ’as airs, sir, not like your friend there.’ His grizzled face crinkled.
Lewgar recalled the man staring in at them through the serving hatch. Whether it was the same man, he couldn’t say. As Gillingham had said, it was dark. The whole thing had been over in minutes. ‘I do not know the name.’
He turned away and leant down to Marlowe, who appeared now to be sleeping with his eyes open. Shaking him by the shoulders, he said, ‘wake up. Mr … Tyndall. Wake. We have been attacked.’
To his surprise, Marlowe’s red-flecked eyes focused on his. He belched, and then said, ‘I heard. I heard. Here. Help me.’ He held out his good arm and Lewgar helped him to unsteady feet. ‘We must – we must dress. It is not by chance that we were attacked. Nothing is by chance. Someone does not like us hunting gold he has set upon tracking himself. We must be up, up, up.’
‘It’s the middle of the night,’ said Lewgar, crossing his arms over his chest.
Marlowe ignored this. Addressing himself to Gillingham, he said, ‘good friend, would – would you be so good as to fetch up our horses?’
Gillingham opened his
mouth, seemingly to protest, and then shrugged.
‘Thank you,’ called Marlowe after him. His voice had lost its wild fury and now seemed slower than usual but calm, measured, as though each word had to be fetched from somewhere deep within him. ‘Well, Thomas,’ he said, looking ruefully down at his bandaged arm, ‘I thank you too.’
‘Thank me?! We might have been killed, murdered in our beds!’ He felt the hysteria singing in his voice.
A wild gleam came into Marlowe’s red eyes and his speech slurred a little as he said, ‘Oh? And do you fear death?’
‘Do I? Doesn’t every man?’
‘Bootless to fear God’s heavy sentence. We have all of us been found guilty of living and that penalty passed. And we must say nothing against the law, eh?’
Lewgar threw up his arms in defeat, before trying another complaint. ‘What is this madness – horses? What do you mean to do – ride for the nearest constable? Magistrate?’
‘Constables?’ Marlowe laughed, throwing back his head and letting the last of his drunkenness boil out. ‘To the devil with constables. What was that name – Howdern? Howden?’ He began fumbling about on the floor, sorting through his folded hose, shoving aside his boots.
‘Ay.’ Lewgar remained in place. ‘In the house on the hill. Do you think it was this man who attacked us?’ Saying the words made him shiver again. ‘Who meant to kill us? He shares our interest in the wreck. In the gold.’
‘I cannot say. Perhaps. It is likely. Yes.’ He held up the doublet Lewgar had managed to prise off him and began whipping it against the wall. Flakes of road muck and salt flew from it. ‘I do not suggest we remain tender-fleshed here to discover it for sure.’
Lewgar felt his face twist in confusion. ‘But – but we might find ourselves a constable – take him to these people and – and ask questions.’ He clung to the idea of a constable, though he knew many were worse than useless. It was the thing to do – it was the manner of things. ‘Or …’ he paused, chewing on his lower lip. ‘Some man of your acquaintance.’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I have heard Sir Francis Walsingham employs men everywhere. Surely his Honour would wish you to tell him of what…’ He trailed off. Marlowe had frozen and stood, his shirttails still loose, staring at the wall.
The Queen's Gold: A Christopher Marlowe Spy Thriller Page 7
