Morgan could learn one thing from this Kit Marlowe, Anne thought. The man was the best liar she’d ever seen. She liked him better for it, and did not necessarily trust him less. A skilled liar could be either a friend or a risk, depending on whom he lied for.
Either way, he was worth watching.
Seven
Kit had slept in more than his share of disappointing rooms over the years. In Canterbury, his family’s two-room lodgings held eight people, leaving Kit and Meg, his next-eldest sibling, to nest on the floor while the younger children shared the bed. Then, as an undergraduate in Cambridge, he’d shared a coffin-sized dormitory with another poor scholar, an unimaginative fellow from Warwickshire who dreamed of becoming a priest, and who snored. Sheffield’s servants’ quarters weren’t so different: a large, open space, perhaps thirty feet long, with a slanted ceiling and a scattering of straw mattresses where the rest of the male staff slept. Not luxury, but he could bear this. And after a journey of a hundred miles, any bed would do. Moments after he collapsed onto one of the open mattresses, he fell into a deep enough sleep that only a royal fanfare would wake him.
A royal fanfare, or the arrival of Mary’s chamberlain the next morning, which sent the entire room into a flurry.
Kit cracked one eye open, regarding the activity around him with the detachment of an astrologer tracking the spheres. It felt as if he’d been asleep for five minutes—the room was still dark, and through the narrow window he could see the mist of predawn. God help him, but it couldn’t yet be half past four.
“Get up,” hissed one of the servants, giving Kit’s mattress a swift kick.
He winced and dragged himself upright. He was a footman to Lady Mary Stuart, he told himself, willing the identity to stick. Kit Marlowe the footman had spent his life following orders and asking no questions. The arrival of a chamberlain—in the middle of the damned night or not—was business as usual.
In the space of minutes, the staff had dressed and made themselves presentable, just as Master Beton, Mary’s chamberlain, stalked into the room. A middle-aged man with a nose like a falcon and a scowl like a mother superior, Beton sized up Kit with a sweep of narrow blue eyes. His dislike shone tangibly. Kit stood silent, bewildered. He’d done nothing to earn that dislike, at least not yet.
“I asked them to send me a proper footman,” Beton said. “Not a vagrant boy.”
Kit scowled. Boy. Someday he’d reach an age where strangers addressed him as an adult. Perhaps forty. He swept a bow, deep and sarcastic. “If I find a proper footman, sir, I’ll send him your way. Meanwhile, my vagrancy is at your service.”
Beton’s lips narrowed. “Truly, I have been blessed,” he said tightly. “You’ll start on silver duty. Harper will show you the way. Then, Harper, you’ll join Mannox in the stables. Elliot, you’ll attend Master Morgan.”
The list of daily tasks was issued with curt precision, the chamberlain running through the list of male servants with the ease of a roster rattled off each morning. Finally, Beton left them with another filthy look as a parting gift, and Kit was left to follow another footman to the pantry. It was every bit as awful as he’d feared: what seemed like an Arabian treasure trove of silver plate had been spread across every flat surface. By noon, he’d scarcely made a dent, and his shoulders and arms ached until they felt detached from his body. The fumes of polish soared to his head and left him dizzy, more potent than any tobacco.
The days continued on much the same, with Beton discovering new agonizing and menial tasks to fill Kit’s time. After the silver, Kit was set to dusting the rooms on the manor’s second floor along with Simon Harper, the second footman who’d led Kit to his doom that first day. He was a nervous fellow, his pale skin almost as transparent as his personality, which provided no distraction from the tedious work. For God’s sake, Kit thought, he’d come here to find information, put his training to use. He hadn’t come to clean a year’s worth of grime from the wainscoting.
Before long, he began to wonder if this wasn’t an elaborate scheme, Norgate and Walsingham colluding to teach him humility. It wouldn’t have been out of character for either of them.
* * *
—————
Weeks passed without any meaningful variation in the routine. Kit watched Mary as carefully as he dared, but if she and the pope drafted plans of regicide in hidden corners of Sheffield Manor, she hid the evidence well. Most nights Kit spent lying awake in the dark, turning over every word she’d spoken in his presence and testing a thousand possible double meanings. It was a dangerous pastime, and he knew it—a good spy wasn’t known for an overactive imagination—but it was that or go mad from tedium.
Other nights, he found a different way to quiet his mind.
He found the attic his third night in Sheffield, wandering the halls one night when the house was abed but his whirling thoughts made it impossible to lie still another moment. Nothing much on its face: a small storage space with a single window, led to by a ladder that could be pushed out of the way to avoid obstructing the corridor. But he could do what he liked there, and in the life of a servant, he quickly saw, such places were in short supply. He came back again and again, transforming the space into a quiet, lofty sanctuary.
Tonight, the countryside lay in a hushed stillness through the window, and the moon sliced a round porthole of silver through the dark. With a groan of effort, Kit pulled himself up from the last step of the ladder, thighs and knees trembling in protest. He’d gone soft during five years at Cambridge, and day after day of hard work left every inch of his body aching. He rested his hands on the small of his back and glanced toward the dark oak chest in the corner, behind a trestle table that sagged to one side like a drunk. Inside, beneath several bolts of fabric, lay his treasure, the one he’d lifted from Morgan’s study with more daring than wisdom: loose sheets of parchment, a capped inkwell, a cracked pen.
As he wrote, resting the stack of pages against his thigh, the words came easier than they’d ever done in Cambridge. Straight from his head to the paper, as if his hand weren’t there to mediate them. Perhaps the mindless work of the past weeks had left his thoughts free to turn over and solve the play’s problems. Or perhaps days thinking of treason primed him to spend nights on Tamburlaine, the story of an upstart rebel snatching thrones from kings.
He could hear Tom’s voice, exasperated, in the back of his mind as he worked. As if you don’t have other things to do. You’re wasting time. You’ve found nothing. You could be doing what they sent you to do, but instead you risk everything on this. Sometimes I wonder if you want to be found out. So you can come back.
So you can see me again.
Kit scowled at the page, irritated by the drift of his own thoughts. Tom was his friend, yes. The first person at Cambridge he felt close to, close enough to talk of anything serious. Of course he would think of Tom now, here, alone, frustrated. And even if it was more, if he blushed like a fool when Tom spoke to him, let his gaze linger a little too long, was it so terrible, that sort of thing? God put on a show in Leviticus, but after that he more or less turned a blind eye to certain thou-shalt-nots. David had Jonathan. Jesus had John. It couldn’t be wrong to miss Tom, to want to speak to him, to dream some nights of…
He slapped the pen against the floor. “Stop it,” he said aloud.
Through the window, the bells in the village church tolled twelve hollow notes, marking one day leaning into the next.
* * *
—————
Gregory told Kit to expect danger on the job—that one wrong word, one wrong look could cost a spy his life. He’d failed to mention how dull it was. Kit itched for regicide, for the threat of armed traitors storming the countryside. At least as a false seminarian in Rheims he’d have had lessons in Hebrew and Aramaic to pass the time. Not his area of interest, perhaps, but certainly better than cleaning floors.
He�
��d been at it for hours, scrubbing flagstones in what must have been the manor’s fourteenth parlor. Surely a moment of rest was called for, so long as no one caught him. Breathing hard, he sank down in one of the armchairs, letting his head drop back to gaze at the ceiling. His arms and shoulders burned from fingertip to neck. He could have stayed here, dozing in this chair, for the rest of his life.
“Thomas,” Mary snapped, from beyond the parlor door. “Thomas, damn you, come here.”
Kit sat up, fatigue forgotten. When as staunch a Catholic as Mary Stuart spoke of damnation, she meant it—and Kit would risk his own damnation to find out why. He pressed close against the door, ear to the crack, just as he’d practiced at the White Stag. But the words he grasped at now were more important than Nick Skeres’s inelegant attempts at seduction.
“Madam?” said Morgan’s voice, emerging into the corridor.
“Has the boy brought today’s letters?”
A pause. “There were none today, madam,” Morgan said.
“Damn him, the whoreson bastard. He might address the next letter to my grave and save the trouble.”
Mary always struck Kit as being more likely to break into an outpouring of Ave Marias than violence, but something in her voice made him fear her. That wasn’t the voice of a woman passing a season in Yorkshire. That was the voice of a queen. One who could command life and death, and would, given the chance.
“I confess, I begin to question the gentleman’s reliability, madam,” Morgan said.
Mary’s laugh reminded Kit of ravens. “Do you? A letter. If we cannot count on him for that, Thomas? Write to him again.”
“And say what, madam?”
“Tell him to hurry. It seems this was not clear the first time.” Mary’s voice grew fainter as she moved down the corridor. “Frighten him, if you can. He tends to be more useful when afraid.”
“Yes, madam,” Morgan said, following.
Kit sat back on his heels. Letters. Urgent letters, and an unreliable correspondent. Hardly worth a report to Walsingham. In Mary’s position, waiting for letters like a Jew for the Messiah was hardly surprising. What else was there to do in exile?
But her anger had been surprising. And it was as close as he’d come to news in weeks.
It was worthless by itself, but if he learned whom Mary wrote to, who could say?
* * *
—————
Kit did his best, in the days following, to sound the rest of Mary’s staff about whom she might be writing to and why. It was a delicate business, trickier than listening behind closed doors. Overly direct questioning and Sheffield’s servants would wonder why he’d taken such an acute interest; not direct enough and his hints would fall aside useless and unnoticed. So far, he’d achieved nothing—which meant, he decided, that he’d need to change tack. No risk, no reward.
Late nights had been Kit’s one moment of freedom at Sheffield, but he abandoned his practice of writing in the attic and sat up instead in the servants’ wing, joining his fellows as they allowed themselves at last to relax. They’d gathered in the men’s quarters that night: himself, Simon, Matthew—Mary’s groom—and Anne, all sitting on the floor in varied states of exhaustion. It would be a wonder if he didn’t fall asleep. Kit’s limbs seemed to sink into the floor the longer he stayed still: another twenty minutes and the ground would swallow him whole. But there was something to be said for a shared state of half attention. Conversation turned looser late at night. Who knew what Mary’s servants might say when at ease?
Matthew took a healthy pull on his hand-carved pipe, smoke whispering in streams from his nose, and passed it to Anne beside him. She ventured to the male servants’ quarters now and again, passing a free evening before wandering back to her own bed, though Kit couldn’t say why. It wasn’t for the pleasure of his company—she had enough opportunities to shoot him accusing looks during the day. And it certainly wasn’t for the tobacco, as she passed the pipe to Kit without comment.
“Not much for smoking, Cooper?” Matthew asked.
Anne shook her head. “It’s a vile habit. Fit for prostitutes and sailors.”
Kit laughed. “Clearly you’ve never smoked,” he said. “Transubstantiation at its finest. The breath of God from a leaf.” He closed his eyes, inhaling deeply—Christ’s blood, he’d gone a long time without this. “Forget bread and wine,” he said to Anne, passing the pipe on to Simon. “If Christ wanted people to respect the sacrament, he should have magicked himself into tobacco.”
Anne looked at him with some alarm. Her eyebrows had begun to climb at transubstantiation and had still not reached their summit. Before she could take Kit to task for blasphemy, though, Simon broke down in an aggressive fit of coughing, a thick plume of smoke belching from his throat.
Kit’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. “Yes, well,” he said, “it’s an acquired taste.”
“Make an effort not to die, Sim,” Matthew said, arching his back in an exaggerated yawn. “I’m going to bed.”
“It’s early,” Simon whined, with another cough to shake out the smoke. “Live a little, for once?”
Matthew stood and shook his head. “I’m off at the second bell for Cresswell, after that fellow Babington. That’s more than enough living for me.”
Cresswell. Kit leaned forward, reminding himself to breathe. This was the first Kit had heard of any communication outside the manor. Mary lived in exile, and in Yorkshire, and under strict surveillance by the queen. There were only so many people she might be in contact with. And Babington of Cresswell, it seemed, was one. The name meant nothing to him—or to Simon, judging by the footman’s enduring lack of interest. But it was more than enough to catch his attention.
“You sound elated,” Simon said drily.
Matthew sighed. “As you’d be, if you had to speak to him. I hand over his message and he barely looks at me, like he thinks his letters appear from midair. Not a word of thanks, no care for the horse, just a door shut in my face and it’s back on the road.”
Simon muttered an oath as Matthew slouched off to bed, cursing noblemen of that nature to an impressive variety of hells. Kit, for his part, had never felt so alive. Matthew wasn’t just visiting Cresswell; he was carrying letters. Who else but Mary’s unreliable correspondent? It would do him no good interrogating Matthew about the messages he carried. The groom couldn’t read, no doubt in part why Mary had chosen him as her messenger. Still, it was closer than Kit had dared to dream of coming.
And there was something else to consider, too. The way Anne’s head tilted at Matthew’s words, the faintest display of interest. Nothing, unless you were looking for it. For a spy starved for information, it was a great deal more than nothing.
Anne was Mary’s most trusted servant. If Babington was important, Mary would have mentioned him before, and Anne would know why.
All he had to do, then, was get Anne Cooper to talk.
* * *
—————
Three days later, Kit found himself on his hands and knees, scrubbing dirt between the flagstones in the south corridor. Dirty water splashed up his arms and soaked his breeches, which combined with the filth under his palms to make him feel like part of the manor itself, a disembodied force that kept the household running. It was degrading work, but satisfying in its own odd way. Filth made an easy target for anger, and after almost six weeks at Sheffield with minimal progress and only a name to go on, he had enough frustration to work out on the deep-caked dirt. It made him think of his mother, the way she’d scour pots with the vengeance of a soldier after losing an argument with his father. God knew with six children and a drunk husband, she had enough rage to vent into household chores. As he watched the cracks between the stones fade from dirty black to a pale gray, he wasn’t sure if becoming more like her gratified or unnerved him.
“Kit, for God’s sake, there
you are.”
Kit glanced up and swore. From the far end of the corridor, Matthew rushed toward him, his boots tracking ovals of mud along the tiles Kit had spent all morning scrubbing. He flicked his rag toward Matthew’s muddy footprints, leaving a scattering of droplets in its wake. “Christ’s light, if you think I didn’t just finish cleaning that.”
Matthew, reeking of horses and indifference, did not react. “Beton’s called us to the servants’ hall,” he said, gesturing for Kit to follow. “If you don’t hurry, it’ll be your own blood you’re scrubbing off that floor.”
There was truth to that. With a last scowl at the mud, Kit tossed the rag to the ground and followed Matthew, his own watery footprints behind the groom’s.
They edged into the hall, where the full staff had already assembled, Beton standing before them like a general on a battlefield. Whatever he’d summoned them for, it had only elevated the chamberlain’s overall sense of self-importance, which rolled off him in waves. Kit ducked his head and slipped into the back of the group, trying to take up as little space as possible. With luck, his delayed entrance hadn’t been noticed.
“Marlowe,” Beton said. The crowd shifted, putting Kit back in the chamberlain’s line of sight. So much for subtlety. “Thank you for your dramatic arrival. Imagine if, one day, I had no need to ask myself where you were or what you were doing. How dull my life would seem.”
Evidently Beton’s repertoire of insults included sarcasm as well. It was a discovery Kit would have been happy to live without. “I can leave and come back later, sir, if you’d like to build suspense.”
Beton’s lips narrowed, but he gave no other indication that he’d heard. He began to pace in front of the assembled servants, his hands interlaced behind his back. “In three days,” he said, “Sheffield will host a visitor. I expect the height of obedience for the duration of the visit. No mistakes. No indiscretions. I hope it’s clear, Marlowe,” he added, “that I am referring to you personally.”
A Tip for the Hangman Page 5
