The Queen's Gold: A Christopher Marlowe Spy Thriller

by Steven Veerapen

  Fail, thought Howton, annoyance bubbling up – as you did!? ‘Speak you of failure?’ he hissed.

  Nicolas stared back impassively. ‘If,’ he said again. ‘I ask only what if.’

  ‘If a hired man should fail … then I think we must resort to other means.’ His eyes fell on a tall iron candelabrum, crowded with beeswax candles. ‘Fire,’ he said. ‘Fires are common enough accidents in the town. If the man you find should prove unable to manage so simple a task, then I think we must resort to encouraging God to send a more definite end to these meddlesome rats. There are always means. A wise man has one, two, three of them should the first fail.’

  Fray Nicolas gave him a measured look. It was unreadable, as usual. Howton chose to see respect in it rather than alarm or disapproval. He smiled as the friar’s black-clad form slipped from the room, leaving him to his charming new bedchamber and thoughts of victory.

  11

  The house was fine, of evidently recent vintage, at least in its appointments. They’d had no trouble finding it. Everyone, it seemed, knew where Sir Francis Drake was lodging. The sea dog had come up from Devon to report on the condition of the ships which the Queen’s favourite, Raleigh, had sent off from Plymouth in April. They’d heard it from the wherryman who had rowed them up and across the river, through the dregs of morning mist. They’d heard it from strangers on the street who cheerfully asked their business as they passed up the crumbling water stairs at Broad Lane, and between the densely packed houses of Vintry. They’d heard it in plummy tones from the citizens who marched purposefully alongside the fairer mansions and the London companies’ halls in Dowgate. As they walked, offering smiles and bows to the men and women they passed, they’d discussed how best to approach Sir Francis Drake.

  ‘Call yourself what you will,’ Marlowe had said acidly. He, like Lewgar, had dressed sombrely in one of the second-hand dark suits he’d returned from The Theatre with. Their small, ruffled collars were pleated perfectly. Their shirts had been given a good airing on the wild ride up from Wembury and they still smelt fresh and airy. Their new doublets and breeches had been beaten clean and brushed, and Marlowe had even had their hose taken out and laundered by the good tapster at The Tabard. To all the world, they must have appeared two fine, modest young gentlemen. All that maintained their rugged appearance – a positive, they hoped, for Drake – was that they remained unshaven from the journeying to and from Wembury. Lewgar sported an itchy, stubbly beard and moustaches, and Marlowe had managed a fair amount of equally fair fluff.

  ‘I will call myself Thomas Lewgar, as God willed I should be called.’ Lewgar had his own ideas about how to secure a meeting with Drake. The fellow was a mariner first and a knight second. At Cambridge, the pair had been taught various aspects of cosmography and optics. Such things would be of value to Drake, whose plans to make future voyages across the seas were well known.

  They had confined themselves to talk of their approach to the mariner. The whole of the previous night and again in the morning, Lewgar had found himself in the uncomfortable position of knowing something about his companion and yet being unsure of what that something was. The result had been that he’d gone along timidly with Marlowe, never quite meeting his eye. He’d said as little as possible over their meagre breakfast, and he had returned from The Curtain well in advance and pretended to be asleep when the fellow had come back with their new rigs. Pretence had given way to reality and he’d had a fitful sleep, his dreams populated by squirming black shadows and voices whispered too low to hear.

  If Marlowe knew he’d been followed – even if he suspected it – he gave no sign and had seemed content to speak only of what they must do in their quest for the truth of the Sparrowhawk and its lost gold.

  He straightened the front of his doublet as they stood before the house. It was called the Erber, and it showed signs of recent refurbishment: its bricks were new, and it was rich in chimneys. It showed only a huffy back to the street, however, looming up on the north side of Elbow Lane. Smoke issued from it in cheerful, curling puffs.

  ‘Well,’ said Marlowe, adjusting his hat, ‘to present ourselves.’ He grinned.

  Lewgar gave a little smile in return. He wasn’t going to run back to Cambridge. Somewhere in the night he had decided upon that. If he did, if he turned on Marlowe and reported on the fellow’s drunkenness, his ill behaviour, his strange and inexplicable connections to the man Poole or Poley, he would not only be doing something vaguely dishonourable – worse, he’d also have begun an affair and left it unfinished, frayed, loose. He would have approached several thorny questions and left them unanswered.

  No, he had agreed to taste Marlowe’s intoxicating brew, whatever his motives had been, and now he must drink to the lees or else forever wonder what lay at the bottom.

  The front block of the house had no door, but rather an arched stone portico with a shield painted in black and white: three lions passant, two above and one below, counter-changed. The passage beneath it opened into a cobbled courtyard. A liveried young page waiting in the cool shadow stepped forward, squinting at them. ‘Your business?’

  As they had discussed on the journey to Dowgate, Marlowe took the lead. ‘Good morrow. We seek an audience with Sir Francis Drake. We are two learned gentlemen who would have a place in advising him.’

  The roll of the page’s eyes told Lewgar that place-seekers were a common enough thing. ‘And your names?’

  With a flourish, Marlowe said, ‘Gillingham.’

  Lewgar, with barely a flinch at the latest lie, said, ‘Thomas Lewgar, of Cambridge. Corpus Christi.’

  ‘Come,’ said the page, stepping back into the portico. ‘I shall send word upstairs. It is unlikely that Sir Francis will see you. He is writing letters – important letters – to his friends at court.’ His chest rose. ‘Her Majesty the chiefest jewel amongst them, now at Greenwich and very welcoming and loving to my master.’ Lewgar had the grace to incline his head.

  They were led, their hats now in their hands, into the courtyard. Here were more obvious signs of the place’s new polish; its mullioned windows and carved stonework all looked inward. The cobbles had been swept clean, and some men were at work washing the great panes of painted glass. The encircling walls rose up two storeys on every side. Their young guide approached a stout oak door which stood above three shallow steps in the northern range of the place. With an affected graveness, he climbed them, knocking slowly before pushing the door open. Marlowe shot Lewgar a look, his eyebrows raised in amusement.

  Inside was a large hall, which took up both storeys. Its ceiling was of carved oak, with painted roundels set between the beams. He gazed up at them. The page caught him. ‘This house belongs to the Lord Mayor himself,’ he piped. And then pride cracked in his voice. ‘Though Sir Francis will have it for his own one day.’ He coughed, forcing manliness back. ‘This way, if it please you.’

  They all strode the length of the hall, up onto a small, carpeted dais – almost kingly, this Lord Mayor! – and through an open door on the right which led into the eastern range. A small room lay ahead. It had few of the trappings of luxury: it was panelled in wood up to a man’s waist and then plastered. A rough bench stood against the wall. ‘Wait,’ said the page, before disappearing through a doorway into the next room.

  Marlowe shrugged, flopping down on the bench and kicking his booted legs out. With his chin high, Lewgar sat down, keeping his legs together and placing his hands on his knees. For a while, the only sound was their breathing. And then, through a window into the courtyard came laughter and the banter of servants, too indistinct to make out. Lewgar closed his eyes, nibbling on his tongue. It seemed a ridiculous thing, to be seeking out the former commander of the fleet which had borne – and lost – the Sparrowhawk. Yet, as Marlowe had pointed out, if anyone had heard of any oddity in the ship’s history, and any rumours of its supposed treasure, Sir Francis Drake would have.

  Whether he could be induced to tell a pair of university men c
ounterfeiting aspiring advisers was another matter.

  Yet the thoughts of that ship, which, he’d decided, had not rested on the ocean floor for years, and of that gold, which had assuredly not been cast onto the bottom but spirited away, would not let him rest. He almost wished he’d never set eyes on the Sparrowhawk. Now that he had, now that he knew that the accepted story of its loss on the return from the New World, carrying its treasures to the seabed, had been false, or mangled, he could not let it go. The whole thing was disorderly, like a badly knotted set of points which he ached to untangle and set right. He had no desire to enrich himself, to secure any share in the gold – for it was the Queen’s gold – but he fully intended to present a clear, final explanation of whatever it was that had happened.

  Time slowed to a shallow, whistling intake and outflow of breath. Marlowe pulled his hat brim down over his brow and dozed, his legs now splayed, whilst Lewgar stayed upright, nodding at the occasional man who bustled through the chamber, either in the direction the page had gone or the other way. Many carried letters rolled into cylinders and tied. They came and went singularly, their heads down. Eventually, men came through carrying silver-domed platters and linen-covered jugs. The scent of spices filled the air. The morning had gone; it was dinnertime for the great captain. Dimly, Lewgar wondered what he ate when he wasn’t reduced to dried shipboard fare. And did he conduct business in the afternoon, or did he rest?

  When the last of the platter-laden servants had departed in the other direction, relieved of their loads, the page appeared again. ‘Sir Francis is at dinner.’

  Marlowe started, hunching forward on his knees and flipping his hat back with a head-toss. ‘Must we return on the morrow?’

  The page gave a smile. It made him look very young. ‘Sir Francis,’ he said, appearing to enjoy their discomfort and determined to stretch it out, ‘is content to discuss matters of the sea whilst he eats. He will hear from you as long as he is at table. No longer.’

  Marlowe darted a quick, cockeyed smile at Lewgar before springing up and offering a hand. Lewgar ignored it, putting his own hands to the bench and hoisting himself to his feet. ‘And we thank him.’

  ‘And you, my good friend,’ said Marlowe.

  The page boy dimpled before turning and leading deeper into the eastern range. A circular stairway curved upwards in a corner of the next room and they took it, emerging into yet another antechamber, this one carpeted and hung with tapestries depicting ancient sea battles. More benches were set against the walls, these scattered with cushions, but neither Lewgar nor Marlowe sat. Instead, they hung back as the page strode across the room and knocked again on a small door. He cocked his head.

  ‘Enter,’ rumbled a voice from within. It was loud and distinct over the soft plucking of strings.

  Pushing the door open, the lad stepped into it. ‘Mr Gillingham and Mr Lewgar, Sir Francis. Who come craving a place in advising you on matters of the sea.’ A command was hurled within. A lutenist left the room, relief on his face, and passed the waiting pair with his instrument clutched to his breast. The page turned jerking his chin at them to step forward. They did, side by side, Marlowe letting Lewgar enter the chamber first.

  Sir Francis Drake was seated before a large table covered in a green damask cloth. On it were spread the various dishes and jugs that had been brought up to him, in addition to numerous bottles and silver cups and goblets. As they entered, the page followed, closing the door softly before skirting them to stand behind Drake’s tall, carved chair.

  The visitors bowed, crushing their hats against their bellies. As he rose, Lewgar studied the great captain. He found nothing to warm or encourage him. Sir Francis Drake was an odd-looking fellow in his forties, rather than the commanding hero he had imagined. His head was curiously shaped: the brow and eyes were bulbous, almost swollen looking, giving the rest of his features the look of an afterthought. He was gazing back them, his protuberant eyes flicking from one to the other and back again. After inflating his cheeks, he blew out air.

  ‘I’m at dinner,’ he said flatly. ‘But lay out your knowledge and understanding, lads. I might taste ’em as I eat.’ The seafaring knight had long been known as a bluff dog and it seemed that, his elevation notwithstanding, he had no plans to relinquish the older title. He had an accent similar to the folk at Wembury, which he made no effort to hide. Yet his voice was coarser, sounding vaguely like boots dragged through gravel. With a gesture of his hand, he waved at Lewgar to speak and then turned his attention to the table before him. His thick fingers plucked here and there, his face turning fussy.

  Lewgar cleared his throat, a little uneasily, and then gave a wide-eyed look at Marlowe, who returned a trace of a nod. ‘Sir, we are men of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, skilled and learned in the mathematical art of optics and the celestial art of cosmography…’ And then, as Drake set to his dinner, chewing and burping and scowling at the table, occasionally looking up with something like amusement on his face, Lewgar set upon his theme. He laid out the value, as he saw it, of putting the arts of the college into practice, with as much passion as he could muster, until he had almost convinced himself that he sought patronage from the mariner. With occasional interjections from Marlowe – who spoke more animatedly, with his arms – he spoke of Strabo and Ptolemy’s works on geography, of Thevet’s and Belleforest’s works on universal cosmography, of Ortellius’s Theatre of the World.

  Lewgar spoke, he thought, rather well, his voice becoming not his own but that of the lecture hall, modelled on the many learned men he had heard speak similar words.

  Drake’s expression, however, did not betray even a polite interest. Only deeper amusement seemed to crease his weathered face in nasty smiles, aimed down at his bowls of stewed peaches and plums, dishes of honey-glazed carrots and skirret, and platters of whole roasted pigeon. Every now and then the page boy darted forward to wipe and refresh his goblets or remove a dish he gestured at with a dismissive wave of his hand.

  Eventually, when the ruins of his dinner were largely cleared, he reclined in his chair, his head tilted back, and held up a finger.

  ‘… that Mr Digges’s translations of Copernicus do rather greater enlarge and enrich the same…’ Lewgar’s voice trailed off. He realised he had been jabbing a finger in the air himself, in the manner of a tutor he had seen at Cambridge, and he quickly lowered his hand and buried it inside his hat.

  ‘Shall I fetch your sweet, sir?’ asked the page.

  Drake didn’t look at the boy, but said, ‘ay,’ and the lad left the room, several silver dishes piled one atop the other, the silver domes upturned and slotted inside one another on top. Keeping his eyes on his guests, Drake went on. ‘I’m a mariner,’ he said, Devon thicker than ever in his voice. ‘Just that. I counterfeit no more.’ His lips pursed for a moment before relaxing. ‘I don’t trouble me with none of these ancient texts.’

  Marlowe inclined his head. ‘Which is why, sir, we offer you our services.’

  ‘You speak when I bid you,’ snapped Drake, a sudden light flaring in his eyes. ‘I have ended your speeches, sirrah, after listening with patience.’ Lewgar shivered, glad that he did not truly intend to serve aboard a ship under this man or any of his ilk. The captain-knight chewed at some morsel he must have prised from between his teeth – good teeth, for a man who had crossed the globe in a ship. He stood. He was not tall; he was not much higher than the pointed back of his chair, though he was thickly muscled. That probably, Lewgar thought, was a boon in cramped quarters.

  The page opened the door with another tray. ‘Your sweet, sir. Spiced with nutmeg.’

  ‘Take it away!’ barked Drake. ‘Give it to the dogs.’ The boy retreated, his face resigned, as though temperamental outbursts from his master were nothing new. The sweet, spicy smell left with him. Drake put his hands on his hips. ‘I have heard you. Ay, you sound fair in your words. Books, and such like. Understanding. Have either of you been to sea?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Marl
owe.

  ‘Thought not. You haven’t the look of it about you. You look as though you’ve been no farther than the end of a book.’ He smiled at his own jest. ‘A mariner – a man – learns by doing and seeing what lies beyond his sphere. Not by reading of it. Reading of it … there’s the trace, the outline, the … the notion’ he made an odd gesture, wriggling his fingers in the air, as though grasping at nothing, ‘not the essence. Not the thing itself. Not the doing.’ It was clear, thought Lewgar, that the great captain had never been highly schooled. He expressed himself like a chandler’s prentice. ‘I know learned gentlemen enough. Have sailed with ‘em, ay. And green they turn at the sights they know only from ink and paper.’ His chest rose – a good chest, a barrel. ‘They quiver and throw themselves to the decks and pray at the first roll. They piss their breeches at storms.’ Again, he gave a nasty smile. ‘Learned gentlemen,’ he muttered, taking his seat again, his own little tempest having passed.

  Lewgar had a brief eye conference with Marlowe. The latter said, ‘ay, sir. It is true, we have not been on any long voyages. Yet we have learnt something of your late adventures.’

  ‘What?’ Drake gave a sharp look upwards.

  ‘Your encircling and encompassing the globe,’ offered Lewgar. ‘And of the troubles you encountered. The ships won and lost.’

  ‘That is her Majesty’s business.’ He thrust his chin up, beyond them, and they both turned. There, on the wall next to the doorway through which they’d entered, was a portrait of Queen Elizabeth, dressed in black and white, glaring back at them under a fizz of red curls. ‘No learned gentlemen were permitted to put their pens to paper of that matter. We were all sworn to keep the Queen’s own secrets of the realm. On pain of death.’

  ‘Yet,’ said Marlowe, ignoring Lewgar’s sudden stiffening, ‘all London knows of your heroic ventures, Sir Francis. All England, I should say.’