‘Your true name is Bess?’ asked Marlowe.
‘Yes.’
‘And you are this Howton’s – what – his concubine?’
She looked up. Finally, some animation crept into her face. ‘He told you – to kill me.’
‘Not a great reward, I think, for your teachery,’ smiled Marlowe. ‘Yet we are not made of his foul stuff.’
Lewgar managed a dry, dusty swallow. ‘What,’ he croaked, ‘do we do with her?’
‘Do as you will,’ said Bess. ‘Kill me or throw me in the river as you will. I have nowhere else to go.’
Feeling pity rise, Lewgar pushed it down, pushed it away, and fought instead for outrage. ‘Cast her out,’ he said. ‘Throw her to the dogs.’
‘Peace, Thomas. Fury does not suit you. Let it go.’ Both Lewgar and Bess looked up at him. ‘Besides, her success in deceit was our own fault. We did forget old Troy. Our escape from gaol was a gift of our enemy. Hostium munera, non munera.’ He shook his head. ‘I would not have her running free, running back to that evil creature.’
‘Never!’ she cried. ‘No. Never! I thought … he promised … he said only that I should watch you. Then free you. And sent word to the friar of your plans.’
‘Friar!’ snapped Lewgar. ‘In league with Spanish papists. A Spanish papist’s whore!’
‘Thomas. No need. Becalm yourself.’
‘It’s no matter,’ said Bess.
‘Did … did Howton constrain … did he enjoin you to this work?’ asked Marlowe.
‘No. He bought me. From a … house in Clerkenwell.’
‘A bawdy house,’ spat Lewgar.
‘No! No – a tavern. I served ale. No more.’
‘Yet he didn’t constrain you,’ said Marlowe, rubbing at his chin. ‘You acted of your own will. That, at least, is honest of you.’
Bess swallowed. ‘He … he promised me much. To make me his wife. But I … I’ve seen his cruelties now. I … was frightened of him. He killed a boy in Wembury, I’m sure of it. And then – and then the friar slew the man in The Tabard and blamed you. And then that poor widow’s husband.’
‘You were frightened,’ said Marlowe. The earnestness in his voice lifted Lewgar’s chin. He had moved to stand before her, and she was looking up at him. Still it was difficult to look at her. There was something perverse in the sight – the woman, Cecily, that she had been lingered in the shape of her nose, the curve of her lips. But with the coif and wig gone, she seemed to have transformed into something other, something sinful and wicked. Marlowe, however, seemed uncaring. ‘I understand this. I attach no blame to you.’
‘But the man, the widow’s husband – Arthur or Roger, he – I led them to him.’
‘Yet you did not kill him. It galls me to see people blame themselves for the misdeeds of others. The man to blame for a murder is the devil who wielded the sword or dagger.’
‘But –’ began Lewgar.
‘But me no buts. Mistress, I think we must retain you.’ He held up a warning finger to Lewgar. ‘But tell me – and be honest, be truthful; I shall know if you lie to me. Tell me, is your attachment, your bondage to this Howton broken?’
‘I hate him,’ she said. ‘I hate him.’
Marlowe continued staring at her awhile, his eyes boring into hers, the pupils expanding, contracting, like pulsing spots of ink. ‘I am satisfied,’ he said, at last.
‘Are you, then?’ asked Lewgar. He crossed his arms. ‘She is a deceiver.’
‘We are all deceivers, Thomas. She found herself on the wrong side.’ He shrugged. ‘She comes with us. We will watch her. Perhaps,’ he said, smiling, ‘you might get to know one another a little better. As your own true selves.’
Lewgar wouldn’t dignify this. ‘And him?’
Thorne had remained on his stool, but he had hunched forward, so that his chin rested on his hands and his elbows on his knees. His breathing was shallow. Marlowe moved over to him, nudging the empty wine bottle aside with his boot. ‘Oh. Yes.’ Marlowe raised his voice, very near to the man’s face. ‘Our friend to the late Roger Byrd.’
At the name, Thorne lifted his head. His silvery hair caught the light pouring in from the window. ‘Eh? What?’ He looked around at his unasked-for guests in confusion.
‘Peace,’ said Marlowe. ‘The man who would have killed you is run. We,’ he said, firing a look back at Lewgar, ‘serve a great man in her Majesty’s government. Do not try to deceive us. Tell us only whether you have any of the Sparrowhawk’s gold left. Do you?’
‘… upstairs. In a coffer. A little.’
‘And the great treasure of that ship – the one that the common tongue calls El Sol Dorado. Do you know where it is?’
‘It … it was kept back. I haven’t seen it. Kept back. By Captain Benham.’
‘Who?’
‘The captain of the ship?’ asked Marlowe.
‘You didn’t mutiny?’ asked Lewgar. ‘You didn’t slay the captain and the rest of the crew and – and rob the ship?’
The old man looked up properly, horrified. ‘I can’t … I can’t tell you anymore. We shared the gold. Me and Byrd, now, we’re the last of them who took the crew’s share.’
‘Byrd is dead,’ said Marlowe. ‘Slain by the hand which would have carried you off too.’
‘Oh God.’
‘Will you tell us what you know?’ asked Marlowe.
‘I …’ The old man licked his lips. ‘No.’ He tried to stand and fell back. ‘No. I – I cannot. Beat or kill me as you will. I will betray no one.’
‘We are not like the last fellow,’ snapped Marlowe. ‘And who is there to betray? You said you are the last.’
‘He isn’t, though,’ said Lewgar, closing his eyes. ‘He isn’t.’
‘What do you mean?’ Marlowe pulled away from the old man, who had turned to Lewgar in surprise.
‘I know who is left. And … then perhaps where this damned treasure lies.’ He almost laughed at the stupidity of it – at the long, brutal, frightening journey that had led them on such a chase. ‘Come. If I know, Howton will certainly know. And we must beat him to the place.’
27
Wembury, wind-blasted and dismal under the lowering clouds, looked as it had on their previous visit. It struck Lewgar as the kind of place that seldom changed. Reigns might come and go, the seasons would shift yearly, but it would remain as it always was, half-forgotten in the dip of rolling green meadowlands beyond its little cove.
The scattering of stone houses was as it had been – quiet in the early evening light. Riding on a little for a look at the Sparrowhawk, they saw that it had all but disintegrated. Only a timber skeleton remained, the majority of it dashed to matchwood against the Great Mewstone by the unrelenting waves.
The ship didn’t matter.
The ship had never mattered, save to invite questions and to churn up the past.
They turned their horses – a fresh pair, exchanged near Exeter. Having availed themselves of some of Thorne’s hoarded gold (or rather a peak off the small mountain of English coins he had converted it to over the years) they had been able to pound down towards the southern coast with speed and some style. They’d stayed only at places which allowed them to wash their faces, hands, and feet, and have their clothes beaten clean and linens washed and dried to warmness for each morning’s ride. Still, it had taken over a week. Whether the mysterious Howton was ahead of them or behind them, they had no idea; they heard nothing of him on the roads they’d taken. Lewgar reasoned that the fellow would have returned to London and, if he’d worked out what he must have worked out based on Thorne’s information, he’d be on his way soon enough.
They did not return through the village. Instead, they took the sandy path which led up a rise from the place, towards the old, grey-stone manor house. They drew to a halt before its heavy, square stone porch. Lewgar was able to dismount without help. He had become adept at doing so. He found a denuded stump to tether the horses to and set about doing just that as Mar
lowe and Bess joined him.
Throughout the previous week, he had spoken not one word to the woman. She had been given her own chambers in those inns and wayside lodgings which had room enough, but she had eaten with them in taprooms or when they broke off to rest the horses. Marlowe had been cheerful enough with her, and she had responded to him. Yet she had not presumed to speak with Lewgar and, for his part, he had nothing to say to a scheming minx. Daughter to a hard, lawyering father indeed. She was no better than a tavern trull, concubine to a murderous Spanish-fed devil. And the worse of it – the shame of it – it was as though she’d known, just by looking at him, as a trull might, what would win his confidence: a woman of middling birth with a creeping spirit of risk.
‘Well,’ said Marlowe. ‘This is it.’ As he spoke, the heavens opened. It was not a windy day; the rain fell in great curtains, downward, darkening and quickly sheeting the ground. ‘Jesu. Come!’
The three of them, their arms over their heads, ducked into the porchway. Lewgar began hammering on the door with a fist, wondering if they would be heard over the sudden thundering of rain.
Thankfully, they were.
‘Yar?’ behind the door stood an old steward. ‘Dirty night,’ he observed.
‘Is the Widow Benham at home?’ asked Lewgar.
The name of the Sparrowhawk’s lost captain had been the key. He had been told the house – the house which Howton and his party had commandeered when they all found themselves in Wembury – had belonged to a Widow Benham. If he recalled the name, so would Howton; the wretch must have dealt directly with the woman.
‘She’s at home.’ A little head popped up beside the steward. ‘Let them in before they drown, John.’ The steward pulled the door inwards and Marlowe, Lewgar, and Bess tumbled in. It closed, muting the insistent drone of the rain.
The Widow Benham was a diminutive figure – even Marlowe was taller – clad in a navy and grey gown with a simple white ruff. Her cap was a plain, curving, navy-and-white affair. Her face was lined, but it looked impish, mischievous. ‘What a lot you are,’ she said. And then she squinted at Bess. ‘You’re no longer with the other creatures, my dear?’
Flushing, Bess said, ‘n-no. Wicked, wicked men. One is dead.’
‘Oh. John, fetch some warmed wine, will you?’
The steward trundled off. Lewgar looked around the entrance hall. It was wide but didn’t stretch back too far. A claret-coloured carpet stretched down the middle, ending at a door to what he supposed would be an enclosed, internal courtyard. There was a door on the left; judging from the shape of the house from the outside, it would lead to an old-fashioned great hall. On the right, a wooden stairway climbed up a few steps towards the wall before turning upwards, towards the back of the house and a gallery above. There was a dampness in the air. The smell of old people, thought Lewgar, unkindly – like spicy possets and old, wet wool. But undercutting it – just – was the faint aroma of home-baked bread and the nip of ale.
‘You are widow to the late Captain Benham, of the Sparrowhawk?’ asked Lewgar.
‘I am.’
‘Madam, we would speak with you of the ship’s treasures,’ said Marlowe. ‘You might be in danger. Yet we are your friends. Or would be.’ He bowed to her, Lewgar following suit. Bess bobbed a curtsy.
The old woman didn’t look frightened. She smiled, showing small yellow teeth. ‘You do sound very grim, young fellow. Ah, that ship. It is gone now, finally. Did you see?’ As they nodded, she sighed. ‘Come. Come with me. And tell me what danger this is you speak of.’
She led them upstairs and along the gallery to the left, through a door into a large solar. Painted hangings covered the walls. Before them stood sideboards with gleaming pewter plate and benches with silken cushions. A fire burnt merrily in the grate on the far wall and, opposite it, more stairs stretched upwards. ‘This,’ she announced, ‘is my warm box. It shelters me in my grey hairs.’
When they were seated, the steward brought them wine and served them before standing against a wall, his head bent.
‘Perhaps, my dear Mistress Benham,’ said Lewgar, hunching forward, his cup held before him, ‘my colleague and I should tell you that we represent certain great officers of state.’ The old woman’s eyebrows rose in what might have been wry amusement. ‘And this much we have learnt…’
He and Lewgar proceeded to tell their story, from the first rumours they’d heard of captured Spanish gold aboard the ship after it had reappeared to their run-in with Howton the Spanish-paid traitor in Canterbury. Marlowe insisted on letting Bess tell of her own involvement, which she did, in stuttering, red-faced detail, working backwards to her first arriving at this same house.
‘And,’ she said, looking up the staircase in the room. ‘I … I didn’t see it. But the lad they captured to question – from the village here. I think … they must have killed him.’
‘What?!’
All heads turned in unison. It was the old steward who’d spoken. He began shuffling across the room. ‘What? A lad of fifteen, yar? Our young Gilbert? Murdered?!’
‘Oh dear,’ said Mistress Benham. ‘Oh dear God in Heaven.’ She rose. ‘Oh, John – I’m sorry, John. I – I would never have let them the house – I should have fought them tooth and nail if I thought – oh, John.’
‘Ye’re sure?’ he addressed himself to Bess. ‘Ye’re sure that creature killed our Gilbert? We thought he’d run off. To Plymouth, to take’s adventure.’
‘I … I think so,’ said Bess. Tears glistened in her eyes. ‘I didn’t wish to believe it. I think so. I’m – I’m sorry.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Mistress Benham, ‘you’d better go and tell his parents, John.’ Crying now, without shame, the steward left the room. ‘Young Gilbert was his late brother’s grandson. They’re all much loved in that family – close kin.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘So much death. Such greed. All for gold.’
‘For the security of the state, mistress,’ said Lewgar. ‘Nothing must fall to Spanish hands. Certainly not this … this…’
‘El Sol Dorado,’ said Marlowe. His eyes lit up. Throughout the tale, Lewgar noticed, he had been drinking her good wine steadily. ‘What is it? Did your husband leave it to you, with the gold?’
‘Gold,’ she said, looking at the cup held in her own hand. It was a thin, frail hand, corded with thick, blue veins. She gave a tinkling little laugh. ‘Look around you. You’re looking at much of it.’ Marlowe looked set to speak and Lewgar threw him a warning glance. The old woman went on. ‘Well, it seems you have learnt much already. It doesn’t matter now.’ She drained her cup. ‘My husband, yes. He was the captain of the Sparrowhawk. He brought it back from the New World. He and his friends – well, you’ve met one of them and the other … the other murdered … they took her cargo and left her to sink in a storm. Split the gold between the whole crew – evenly, fairly. Old Mr Thorpe, he saw to that. A fair man.
‘But the ship didn’t sink. They’d bored holes in her – they wished her gone to the bottom – once they’d brought the coffers of gold ashore in the longboat. But there she sat, out at sea, refusing to sink. Well, a storm was getting up, and when it cleared she was gone. Until others began reporting seeing her adrift.’
‘A ghost ship,’ said Marlowe.
‘A ship thought sunk that hadn’t. Stubborn old girl.’ She smiled. ‘She drifted about the Narrow Sea awhile, we heard. My husband – he fled inland.’
‘To Canterbury, perhap,’ said Lewgar.
‘Perhaps. Inland with his friends. They had to lay low a space, with the world thinking them still somewhere at sea. But I kept my ears open. There’s no other talk but of the sea and what it does out here. And when Drake’s Golden Hind returned, the word went out that the Sparrowhawk must have been lost. I went into mourning, of course. Then people began saying they’d seen the ship. Off Falmouth. Off the Lizard. So it got to be said that she’d become a ghost ship. Crew of dead mariners.’
‘You mean,’ asked Lewgar, not believ
ing it, ‘that she has been adrift these past five years – survived?’
‘Don’t be daft, boy.’ He blinked at her. ‘Of course not. The damned ship had been salvaged by Breton pirates. They must have caulked her, dressed her out a little, and used her as a smuggler. My husband went to an early grave worrying that she’d be captured by the authorities and her true name revealed. Then people might start wondering about her former crew.’ She tilted back her head, looking into the past. ‘Well, I would go to visit him – he lived in different places, then. He fell ill with an ague three years since, before we thought it safe to live together again.’ Dabbing at a tear, she went on. ‘Mr Thorne – when he heard – he was a good enough man to see that I got poor Samuel’s share of the gold. When we were courting, he used to have an eye on this fine house. “One day we shall have that,” he’d say. Well, when I found myself rich, the place was free enough. Old papist gentleman had been cast out of it. And so here I am. And here you are.’
‘A fine tale for a spring night,’ said Marlowe. ‘But what of El Sol Dorado. It wasn’t amongst Thorne’s things at Canterbury.’ He blinked. ‘Or was it? Did he sell it? What is it?’
She looked at them, one by one. And then she pulled a cushion from behind her back and began shaking it in an obvious sham of irritation. Searching for a lie, thought Lewgar. But when she looked up, her eyes were clear. ‘It’s a real enough treasure. A strange, savage thing. My husband told me of it. It was the prize the Spanish king raged against losing the most.’
Marlowe looked set to rise from his seat, to cross the room and shake her.
‘How did the Sparrowhawk come to return?’ asked Lewgar, forcing him back down with his words.
‘Oh.’ A pixie look returned to her small, round face. ‘Well, those Breton pirates must have had their use of her. I doubt creatures like that would go to any honest shipwright. Set her adrift again, they must have. When rumours came up out of Plymouth that the ghost ship had been sighted, I paid a good local man to scout the waters. Tolchard.’ Lewgar and Marlowe looked at one another, the latter bursting into laughter. ‘You know him?’
The Queen's Gold: A Christopher Marlowe Spy Thriller Page 25
