The Queen's Gold: A Christopher Marlowe Spy Thriller

by Steven Veerapen

  People had come out now to stand in doorways. They stood around, spectators in a colosseum, waving their fists in the air. Their shouts blended into a single, roaring chorus. I’m fighting, thought Lewgar, with a detached kind of wonder, as he rocked wildly, at the mercy of his victim’s steps. No graceful wrestling or fencing, but a filthy, low brawl. In Southwark! His head lightened, felt empty, as he was thrown backwards and forwards, from side to side.

  He tried to speak and bit his tongue. Another jolt of pain made him blink. The tang of dirty metal filled his mouth.

  He felt his grip on the man’s wrist slip.

  ‘Hold him!’

  He opened his eyes. Looked down, over his captive’s shoulder.

  Marlowe had regained his feet. He was standing hunched, his arms and legs spread wide, as though he were a little monkey. Fury was written on his face. Lewgar stiffened every muscle he could, gripping, tightening. And then he saw that Marlowe had produced his own blade. It was nothing very deadly – a short length of polished steel he carried for protection on the road, not unlike Lewgar’s own. The man whom he clung to saw it too. Instantly, he stiffened. And then he redoubled his efforts to shake off his burden. The pain in Lewgar’s gut flared again and he slid. Yet his left arm, still hooked around the man’s neck, was forced upwards, into soft flesh. The brute’s head snapped back.

  He dropped his dagger. It landed noiselessly in the muck. Marlowe hopped forward, kicking it. In a shower of dirt, it disappeared into the sewer channel.

  Lewgar let go, falling to the ground, feeling the bones of his backside rattle. He watched, again feeling detached, as Marlowe sprang forward, slashing wildly. A scream rent the air, higher and wilder than the cheers and jeers from the watchers.

  ‘Stop!’ Lewgar cried. ‘Marlowe! Don’t kill him!’ His own voice carried; even the young wretch stepped backwards, nearly standing on him.

  Nearly standing on him.

  In a whipping movement, his hand flew, clutching the man’s ankle and jerking back. He felt sideways, his hands up, before him, to his sides, everywhere, as he scrabbled for protection and safety.

  Once he’d hit the ground and lain there, his arms held over his face, Marlowe fell on him again. Lewgar watched as the failed attacker was punched, kneed in the cods. ‘Don’t kill him,’ he repeated, more weakly.

  But Marlowe did not seem to hear. Instead, in the grip of an untameable fury, he had dropped his own blade and was intent on beating the attacker-turned-victim to death. For his part, the young man’s bellows had reduced to a childish whimpering. Heavily, Lewgar got to his knees and shuffled forward on them, just as Marlowe, straddling the fallen creature, was forcing his arms away from his face with both hands.

  Calmly, oddly calmly, Lewgar looked away from the strange turn the fight had taken. With the image of David conquering Goliath in his mind, he began fussily feeling about in the streets for a rock. His hand, he noticed, was trembling. Coldness seemed to invade every part of him, as though icy fingers were digging beneath his doublet, beneath his shirt, thrusting down his breeches to tickle his privates. He found no rock, no stone, but his fingers brushed a half-buried chunk of metal. He jerked away, instinctively worried about cutting himself on a discarded dagger. Yet, he saw, it was no such thing. It was, in fact, an ancient horseshoe, long robbed of any gleam, bent out of shape by long use and the tread of hundreds of human feet. Its coldness, its solid strength radiating through his palm, he pulled it free, before shifting, his knees now stinging, back to the fight.

  Still, Marlowe was in a frenzy, pounding away, using his fists, the back of his hands. Whenever the blur of blows slowed or receded, whenever Marlowe paused to breathe, the young man’s mess of a face showed, darkly bloody now. He knew, thought Lewgar, that he was beaten, and was probably content to die on the street.

  ‘Stop,’ he said. He repeated it, more loudly. And then, seeing that Marlowe had been transported, like a pagan beast, he whipped his free hand over the man’s face, halting the barrage of slaps and punches.

  ‘Is he awake still?’ he mumbled. Marlowe, his own face bloody now where he must have wiped at it, said nothing. But he seemed to understand. He looked down. The young fellow was indeed still conscious, though only barely.

  In the brief interlude, the moment of watching, Lewgar raised his horseshoe. He held it next to the fellow’s head – his breathing now was ragged, his whimpers a pathetic mewl – and angled it away. And then, in a fluid motion, Lewgar whipped it at him, striking him just above the brow.

  The mewling stopped, like a candle being snuffed.

  Marlowe said nothing. As though in a final act of defiance, of rage, he sank his fingers into the lad’s greasy mop of brown hair, lifted the unconscious head, and slammed it back into the muck. As he rolled off of him, Lewgar leant in, putting his ear to the fellow’s face. Over the ringing in his head, he could hear the shallow gasp of breath, every few seconds, taken mostly through the mouth.

  Alive.

  Just.

  He threw away the horseshoe. It hit something with a muted ting. The crowd seemed to have drawn its collective breath. The silence didn’t last. Jeers followed. Lewgar started as something – the core of a cabbage, he saw, when it hit the ground – bounced off his shoulder. The spectators were unhappy, cheated.

  ‘Foul!’

  ‘Two upon one, foul!’

  ‘Cowards!’

  A lone voice cheered. ‘Well done, lads!’

  Lewgar looked up. The street and its people seemed to spin, hose and breeches and skirts and pattens and raised fists all slanting first this way then that. Ignoring the rough feel of the ground, he used his palms to get unsteadily to his feet. Marlowe ignored his hand when he offered it; he was still staring angrily down, still straddling their attacker. Lewgar nudged his shoulder. Marlowe’s shaggy head whipped round, his hands bunching, as though he thought someone else might be set to fight. It seemed to take a long time – though it was only a few seconds – for him to realise who it was.

  ‘We whipped him,’ he said, his face twisted in triumph. ‘We whipped the bastard.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lewgar. ‘We whipped him.’

  Marlowe took his hand and climbed off the unfortunate assailant. ‘We might have killed him.’

  ‘We have to go. We have to take him. The law will come. Men, constables.’

  Marlowe was panting. ‘Constables? The law? In Southwark?’ He bent over, one hand on his hip, and sucked hungrily at the air.

  ‘We have to take him,’ said Lewgar again. ‘Bind him. Until he wakes.’

  Marlowe straightened. He looked monstrous, unnatural, his hair wilder than ever, his hat off, blood and dirt smeared about his face and hands, spattered over his clothes. His eyes widened, like two great, pale eggs floating in a murky broth. ‘By God,’ he said. ‘By God’s own teeth, you’re right. We’ll make him talk. We’ll make him.’

  As the crowd began to disperse around them, the pair retrieved their hats, hoisted the fallen man beneath the armpits and began dragging him down the street, his cheap boots trailing in the dust. As they passed the cathedral, Marlowe grunted. ‘Are you hurt? He got you.’

  ‘I’ll – live.’ Lewgar could feel the dull ache in his side. Probably, he thought, the blade had not penetrated too deeply. It would have to have punctured buckram and linen before it reached his skin. He wouldn’t know until he undressed. In the meantime, his clothing would keep him well caged.

  The fellow’s head lolled drunkenly, hanging down over his frieze jerkin.

  Now that he’d spoken, Marlowe seemed unable to close the floodgates. Lewgar let him talk. ‘We’ll discover him. Who sent him. Filthy beast. Creature of the streets. Knave. We’ll discover who sent him.’

  They hauled their load into The Tabard’s taproom. Heads snapped up. The clatter of dice and the soft, merry piping fell silent. ‘Don’t mind us, good people,’ said Marlowe, kicking a stool out of the way. A little table went screeching with it. From the other side of the
bar, the tapster, Hillyard, called, ‘what’s this, lads? What’s this?’

  ‘None of your concern,’ snapped Marlowe. ‘But send us up something to drink.’

  Hillyard glowered but said nothing.

  Lewgar considered the danger of constables again. He said nothing. As they shuffled through the room, two victors fresh from battle, he caught sight of a pretty, dark haired girl staring at them, her eyes wide and her hand clutched about the small ruff at her throat. Lewgar managed an awkward smile. What might she be seeing? A fine, strapping young man who had returned from the wars, his quarry vanquished – an Augustus returning in triumph from Actium. Women, he had always supposed, liked a man of action, dirty or otherwise.

  When they reached their room, both men were bathed in sweat. Getting the fellow up the rickety stairs had depleted the last of their strength, even that born of the excitement of what had happened.

  ‘Shall we lay him on the bed?’

  ‘Shall we hell. The floor.’

  Marlowe slid away, leaving Lewgar with the full weight of the fellow. Gently, he lowered the man, even as his companion went to the room’s coffer and began pulling out his spare hose and shirt. These he returned with, and he bent and began binding the fellow’s feet and hands.

  ‘How long will he be … without speech?’

  ‘I cannot say,’ said Marlowe. ‘Not too long.’

  A knock at the door made them both start. Lewgar straightened himself before answering it.

  ‘Your beer, sir,’ said Hillyard. ‘And I thought a little water to cleanse you. You are both begrimed.’ The little man was not subtle. As he held out the uncovered jug and the small, towel-covered ewer, he twisted his head from side to side, trying to peep around Lewgar.

  ‘Thank you.’ After taking the jug and ewer, Lewgar banged the door closed in his face. When he had set them down on the table, he turned, wincing, and put a hand on his midriff, just above the hip.

  ‘You are hurt,’ said Marlowe. He rose from the prone figure, who was by now bound tightly. He clomped across the chamber, his grubby fingers already questing at Lewgar’s middle.

  ‘I’m well enough!’

  ‘Do not be a babe. Here.’ Tutting, Lewgar let him unbutton his doublet and carefully untie the points of his shirt. He looked away. His tongue stung again from where he’d bitten it.

  ‘Not too deep. Scarce deeper than mine was.’ Marlowe held up the arm that had been slashed in Wembury, and which he’d kept bound up under his shirt ever since. ‘A small puncture. I shall bathe it. Cleanse it.’

  ‘You shall do no such thing. I’ll do it.’

  Shrugging, Marlowe stepped back, leaving Lewgar to hiss and bite at his lips as he washed the wound. Feeling the need to say something, he kept his voice steady. ‘It – it stings and nips close more than it hurts.’ He had never been wounded before. He had never known more than grazed knees and once, when he was very young, he had slid in the fields in his father’s parish and cut open his head on a piece of old brick when drawn to explore some old monastic ruins. He couldn’t even remember that, of course; he remembered only that afterwards his father had cautioned him to channel his curiosity into learning and educational pursuits. And so he had, until now. Until these past weeks. Until Christopher Marlowe and his damnable temptations, his invitations…

  Certainly, he had never been in any kind of brawl or scrap, as other boys had.

  It was exciting – stupidly, shamefully exciting, as though he had lived the role of a man who does things, a man who meets danger and emerges victorious.

  He winced again as he took a piece of the linen towel he’d used to wash and tied it around his middle. It would have been less exciting had he been alone, had a beer-fuelled Marlowe not been there to ensure they won.

  ‘Well,’ he said, when he’d finished, and let his shirt drop over the clean, patched little wound – not much of a wound but a battle scar nonetheless. ‘Now we wait.’ His voice sounded anything but manly and excited.

  ***

  Cocks were crowing somewhere outside, their warbles rising and falling, by the time the captive awoke properly. They had slept fitfully, in shifts. He couldn’t move, of course, couldn’t escape, but he might scream the place down.

  ‘Umm. Mmm.’

  Lewgar, who had been sitting guard, stirred, his head jerking up from his chest. One of the fellow’s eyes was swollen shut. The other, red-flecked, was open and rolling from side to side.

  Hopping from the stool, Lewgar crossed to the bed and shook Marlowe. He awoke immediately, without grunt or yawn. ‘He lives? He is risen?’

  ‘He lives. He has opened his eyes.’ Behind them, the bound man made a groaning sound. It might have been an attempt at ‘what’.

  Together, they knelt on the boards by him. Marlowe produced his eating knife – a dull thing but threatening enough – and held it to the man’s throat. ‘If you cry out. If you many any sound. You will die.’

  The unfortunate wretch’s tongue darted over his lips. ‘Water,’ he said, his accent born of the gutter. Marlowe nodded at Lewgar, who stood and moved towards the table. He had barely time to touch the jug of beer. ‘The creature craves water, Thomas. Not beer. Give him water.’

  Lewgar looked down. The ewer’s water was filthy, cloudy with blood and dirt. Sodden at the bottom lay the bits of towel he hadn’t used to bind his wound. He left the jug where it was, his hands closing around the ceramic bowl instead.

  Marlowe roughly lifted their prisoner to a seated position, whilst Lewgar, looking away, held the ewer to his lips and tilted. Slurping, swallowing sounds still reached him. When they ceased, he set the thing on the floor.

  ‘Now, friend,’ said Marlowe. ‘We must ask you some questions.’ He lifted his knife again, holding its tip directly before the man’s unswollen eye. ‘If you speak fair and truly, you might walk away from this place. Back to whichever foul, low place you crawled from. If you choose to keep your own counsel…’ He shrugged. ‘It will go badly for you.’

  His eye, wide with terror, swivelled towards Lewgar, who resisted the urge to look away; the man had stabbed him, and he would not now present himself as the weaker of the captors. ‘I’ll speak.’ It came out in a croak.

  ‘That is good,’ said Marlowe, his voice low and steady. ‘I like to hear men speak. A fair thing. Who sent you?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  Marlowe looked up at Lewgar. ‘That is not a good beginning, is it? No, that will not hold. Will not do.’ The knife, which he had lowered, rose again.

  ‘I dunno his name! Dunno that!’ The blade fell. ‘I’ll tell yer, tell yer what happened.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Lewgar. ‘Tell.’

  The man spoke hurriedly, his words tripping over each other. ‘’e found me out by Paris Garden. At the cock fights I was. Coming out. With me friends there. I stopped for a piss. ’e asked me, ’e said, friend, ’e said, would you like to earn some coin? Me, I said, I would that, sir, ay, and it please yer. What doing? says I. And ’e says there are a couple of men done ’im a wrong turn. Can’t be ’aving that, says I. And he told me of this place. Where you was lodged. Two college boys, ’e says. Soft, like as to court women.’ Here he paused, closing his mouth, as though frightened he might have stirred their ire.

  ‘Go on,’ prompted Lewgar.

  ‘So, ’e says, you follow ’em. See where they go. So I did. Followed yer right over the river. To that fine ’ouse. Drake’s folks said outside it. And back.’

  ‘Why did you strike at us?’ asked Marlowe.

  ‘It was ’im! Said once I’d learnt who yer served, I was to get rid of one. Both if yer gave trouble. But if I got one, th’other I was to bring back ’ere and … soften up, like. Make ready for ’imself to ’tterogate, I reckon.’

  ‘This man – did he give you a name?’ asked Lewgar.

  ‘No, sir. Reckon ’e didn’t.’

  ‘What did he look like? His countena– his face?’

  ‘Middling ’eight, ’e was. All in bla
ck, sir. Like a clerk. White face. Thin.’ Lewgar tried to recall the face of the man who had peered in at them in the little house in Wembury, the pallid, thin figure who had broken in on them later that night.

  ‘English?’ asked Marlowe.

  ‘I reckon so, sir.’ His eye rolled down to his hand again and his tongue swept his lips. ‘Bit of something. Like as no accent, none. Strange. Quiet.’

  Marlowe gave Lewgar a long look, one cheek working. He focused again on the prisoner. ‘Do you know the name Howdern? Or Howden? Anything approaching that?’

  ‘No, sir. Never ’eard such a name in me life, sir, honest.’

  ‘Honest!’ said Lewgar.

  ‘Ay,’ Marlowe agreed. ‘We have captured us an honest cutthroat.’ His tone dimmed. ‘For that is what you are, is it not? A dirty, grubbing cutthroat – a common ruffler. A creature who would do murder for hire.’

  The young man seemed to reach for the word. ‘Murder! Murder is a very bad thing, sir. Me old ma always said it – the baddest of all the sins. If – if – if you kill me, ye’ll be doing it yourselves, that bad sin.’

  Marlowe, to Lewgar’s annoyance, tossed his head back. His laughter filled the chamber. It was unaffected, natural. ‘Ay,’ he said, when it subsided. ‘I believe that we would. And no better than you we should be. You have failed, young master murderer.’

  ‘So – so – I can go? I won’t say nothing to no one. Not about nothing. Honest. Ye’ll never see me no more. I – I’ll go north, back to me old ma north of the river. Honest.’

  ‘Be quiet,’ said Marlowe. ‘I said you would live, if you spoke. And you shall.’

  ‘But we…’ began Lewgar. He trailed off. In truth, he had no idea what to do with the creature. Probably he would flee, if freed. But possibly also he would find these friends he spoke of and come back with them. It might even be that he had lied through his teeth. Narrowing his eyes, he said, ‘were you to report to this man who hired you? This pale, thin creature?’