The English Agent

by Phillip DePoy

  “Well it didn’t take you long,” Gelis said. “Who did it?

  Marlowe stopped his horse and slid to the ground.

  “I’ll tell you when I’m certain; my mind is still clouded,” Marlowe said.

  “Clouded?” Gelis asked, taking the reins to the horse.

  “I’ve been shot and stabbed,” Marlowe began, “I’ve traveled to a foreign land, I’ve failed to prevent two murders, and then I’ve lost a good and true companion. I am not entirely in my right mind.”

  “But you know who did it,” Gelis goaded. “I can tell.”

  Marlowe nodded reluctantly

  “Who is the villain?” Gelis asked, his voice hushed and menacing.

  “An actor,” Marlowe whispered back.

  “My God.” Understanding dawned across Gelis’s face.

  Unbidden, Toby appeared and Gelis did not speak further. Toby glared at Marlowe and took the horse.

  “You’re back, then,” he said, sulking.

  “I am, and it’s good news for you,” Marlowe answered. “We’re going to London to find your heart’s desire.”

  Toby’s face brightened. “London?”

  “We’ll leave within the hour,” Gelis assured him decisively. “You’d best prepare yourself, young Toby. London’s not a place for man that does not have complete command of his faculties.”

  “London,” Toby muttered again as he led the horse away.

  “Sad to say,” Gelis went on as soon as Toby was out of sight, “that the boy’s heart’s desire is also your quarry. This female-playing-actor killed our Leonora?”

  “I believe so. I should have known it sooner. I was blinded by exhaustion and grief.”

  “And theatre,” Gelis added.

  “Sorry?” Marlowe inclined his head toward Gelis.

  “If someone has stolen a horse from me,” Gelis began, “I look first to the local gentry and criminal class, not to the fellows of my own camp.”

  Marlowe considered the wisdom of that pronouncement, especially as it so closely resembled Walsingham’s admonition on the matter.

  “Agreed,” he confirmed at length. “Add to that concept the fact that another of the players in this grotesque pageant is a mentor of mine.”

  “So much the worse,” Gelis commiserated.

  * * *

  Torches were burning in The Theatre, and Thomas Kyd was lying on his back in the middle of the stage.

  “No! Christ on a carrot!” he bellowed.

  He sat up and glared at the Ghost.

  “If you hope to play this part by week’s end, boy,” he railed, “you’ll have to know at least a few of the words I’ve written. You are to say, ‘Then, sweet Revenge, do this at my request: let the lovers’s endless pains now cease, Juno forget old wrath and grant him ease; Hang Balthazar about Chimera’s neck, and let him there bewail his bloody love!’”

  “I know the words,” Ned growled, “you dank, cavernous tooth-hole. I’m buggered and bunged, is all. That bitch broke my back!”

  “You let a woman beat you.” Kyd coughed up his laughter from the center of his belly. “And now you walk like a clown.”

  Ned stood sweating in his white powder and long black cape. His legs ached, his back burned, and his eyes were rimmed in red. The Theatre was vacant save for the portly playwright and his tortured player.

  “It’s your fault,” Ned swore bitterly. “I wouldn’t be in this condition if I hadn’t listened to you.”

  “You wouldn’t be in this play if you hadn’t listened to me,” Kyd corrected. “You can’t play the girls’ roles any more. What was left but street whoring and cutting the occasional purse?”

  Ned glanced down at Kyd’s pants.

  “The next time I’m down there,” Ned said calmly, “I’m going to bite off your bollocks. I’m known amongst Leicester’s Men. Kemp says I’m ready for Lyly’s new play about the Italian lovers.”

  “John Lyly,” Kyd snapped disdainfully, “is shite. What’s this new play?”

  “It is taken, I have been told,” Ned answered, enjoying the upper hand, “from William Painter’s book, Palace of Pleasure. As are several of your efforts, Tommy-boy.”

  Kyd sat up. “Painter’s book? Which story?”

  “It is the Lamentable History of Romeus and Juliet,” Ned said grandly. “I am to play the very male role of this dick Romeus, what falls in love with a girl he should not.”

  “Blast God’s Teeth!” Kyd snarled, scrambling to his feet. “I’m working on that story!”

  “I know.” Ned grinned. “But Lyly has finished his work and the play is to be presented. So give me the rest of the night off, let me soothe my back, or shove your ghost up the River Bum-whip and I shall take my services elsewhere.”

  “You ungrateful badger’s colon,” Kyd howled. “I saved you!”

  “You embroiled me in the worst stew of my life, you great mound of pig guts!”

  Kyd fell silent for an instant. When he spoke again, his voice was greatly changed.

  “I know, Ned,” he murmured. “I’m sorry. I had no choice.”

  * * *

  Marlowe sat beside Gelis in a clanking, rattling cart. It was painted red and white, decorated with astrological designs, and the spokes of each wheel were alternately painted yellow and blue. The sun was going down and Marlowe slumped down, trying to sleep.

  “I approve of this speedy travel,” Marlowe mumbled, “but if I’m to be in a Gypsy cart, why can’t I lie down in the back and get some sleep?”

  “First of all,” Gelis answered, “we don’t generally respond to the word Gypsy, and second of all, I would not have you lie with my wife.”

  “I wouldn’t be doing anything,” Marlowe assured Gelis. “I’d be sleeping.”

  “Yes but it ain’t you I’d be worried about,” said Gelis. “You lying there beside my wife? Might put ideas into her head. She’s a young woman, and I’ve seen the way she looks at you.”

  “The only look I’ve seen on her face,” Marlowe responded, “is an expression of abject fear.”

  “Maybe she’s afraid of her feelings for you,” he suggested.

  “Gelis,” Marlowe began, but his objection was not completed.

  A musket shot rang out, and in the next instant the roof of the cart cracked, showering bits of wood and sawdust downward.

  Gelis dropped low and pulled the reins tightly.

  Marlowe was out of the cart with his rapier in his hand, scanning the woods for a puff of smoke in the dim starlight.

  Another shot splatted against the side of the cart. From inside Gelis’s wife squeaked once.

  Silver against a line of elm trees, Marlowe saw a small white cloud drifting off toward the west. He lowered his head and ran toward the spot whence the smoke had come. Was this a single assailant or were there several?

  Marlowe stooped as he ran and scooped up a small branch, then tossed it as hard as he could to his left. The branch clattered across the forest floor, and sounded like half a dozen clumsy men in the relative quiet of the night.

  A third shot rang out. Not enough time to reload; there were at least two assailants. But the smoke came from the same location as before; at least they were not scattered out.

  “You three go that way!” Marlowe called out in a guttural voice. “Get around behind our attackers!”

  Then he tore away to his right as silently as he could.

  He could hear scrambling in the darkened woods. Someone tripped over a root, fell hard on the ground, cursing.

  Picking out a large oak, Marlowe hid, listening, holding his breath.

  Hearing nothing, he peered slowly around the tree. No movement, no clue, no one was in the woods anywhere near him. But it was unlikely that the attackers had given up. They weren’t highwaymen. Robbers had better sense than to attack a Travelers’ caravan—there was little worth stealing.

  Just as that thought occurred to him, Gelis called out like a town crier.

  “It’s nothing, Mr. Greene!” he shou
ted. “Come back to the cart. We’ll be on our way once more, then!”

  Not knowing what to make of that, Marlowe carefully made his way back to Gelis’s wagon. As he approached he saw that Gelis was not alone on the bench seat. A ragged scarecrow of a man sat beside him, grinning like an idiot. He was dressed in black, but hundreds of knots had been tied into the fabric of his shirt and pants, and each knot held a flower, an herb, or a small bauble of some sort. His boots were spotless, as if they had never touched the ground. His head was shaved, like a monk’s.

  Marlowe slowed his pace and kept his rapier up.

  “This is Belpathian Grem,” Gelis told Marlowe matter-of-factly, “lately of the Netherlands. He and his fellows have been tracking us since we broke camp. They saw you sitting beside me and thought I might be your prisoner or captive. I have assured him that we are all friends.”

  “Vriend,” the odd scarecrow said, still smiling ear to ear.

  “Wie bent u?” Marlowe asked cautiously.

  “Belpathian Grem,” the man repeated.

  “No,” Marlowe demurred, stopping short of the cart. “You’re speaking Dutch but that’s not a Dutch name—that’s not any kind of name I know.”

  “Mr. Grem is of the Weird Folk,” Gelis answered. “He speaks twenty languages, knows medicine and witchery, and they say he’s three hundred years old.”

  “The Weird Folk,” Marlowe said, a faint smile touching his lips. “That’s a children’s story.”

  “A story I have heard for years, all over Europe,” Gelis answered excitedly. “And I’ve seen him before. The stories are quite real.”

  “I can see that,” Marlowe said, doing his best to hide derision, “but what is he doing in my seat?”

  “As I say,” Gelis answered, “he’s been following us. He has intelligence from Delft. Leonora enjoined me to alert my network of Traveling brethren, and that has proved a worthwhile endeavor. Mr. Grem has news.”

  Marlowe didn’t move. “I don’t see how, unless his witchery allows him to bend the rules of time. He could not possibly have heard from you, gathered information, and delivered himself to us in so short a time. William has only been dead for—God, for the life of me I can’t calculate how long he’s been dead. Is it just two days? At any rate, not long enough for all that travel.”

  “That’s where the birds come in,” Gelis allowed. “I keep a dole of doves for communication, you see. Mr. Grem is one of the homes. He heard from me before you and Leonora was even arrived at the Netherlands. Though I must admit that his appearance here on the road is a bit of a surprise.”

  “He thought you were my prisoner?” Marlowe asked. “Was he trying to shoot me?”

  “Yes,” Gelis admitted.

  Marlowe looked into the woods. “Then I’m glad he’s not much of a shot.”

  “It’s my brother’s youngest son,” the odd man said in English, without a trace of any accent except for a slight Yorkshire tang. “He’s only nine. I took the gun away from him after the second shot.”

  Marlowe stared at the mystifying Mr. Grem.

  “Gelis has told you about Leonora Beak and me,” Marlowe began, “so now that you know who I am, will you tell me your news?”

  “I can tell you what I can tell you,” he said. “The rest is for other ears.”

  “I have no idea what that means,” Marlowe said, his rapier still out.

  “Spanish forces are gathered in Zutphen,” Mr. Grem said, making an effort to sound ominous. “But there is more—something odd, in light of William’s recent demise.”

  “And what would that be?” Marlowe asked, squinting. “This something odd.”

  “In brief,” Mr. Grem began, “The Spanish king Philip has a nephew, King Rudolf of Hungary, Bohemia, and Austria, the so-called Holy Roman Emperor. Rudolf has given me charge of a certain manuscript, written in what he called the Enochian language, that I am to deliver to John Dee, mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occult philosopher—and advisor to your Queen Elizabeth.”

  Marlowe’s rapier lowered, but only owing to his amazement.

  “You are carrying a missive from Rudolf, the Spanish king’s nephew,” Marlowe asked softly, “to John Dee, Her Majesty’s advisor?”

  “No. John Dee has purchased a manuscript from Rudolf, and I am delivering same. It is not a communiqué of any sort.”

  “Let me see it,” Marlowe insisted, taking a step toward the odd man.

  “Of course not,” he answered, producing a pistol.

  Marlowe stopped, but he smiled.

  “If you didn’t kill me just now under cover of wood and the approaching night,” Marlowe said, “you won’t shoot me in front of Gelis now.”

  Gelis shifted in his seat, leaned to his left, and suddenly held a knife to Mr. Grem’s throat.

  “I’m afraid he’s right, Mr. Grem,” Gelis announced. “I owe a large debt of conscience to this man and his deceased companion, and I would very much prefer you did not kill him.”

  “No intention of killing him.” Grem smiled. “I just can’t let him see the manuscript.”

  “Where’s the harm?” Gelis asked reasonably. “You say it’s written in the Enochian language—who can read that?”

  “No one,” Marlowe sighed, “because it doesn’t exist. It’s a fanciful invention.”

  “You don’t believe in the Language of Angels?” Grem asked.

  “I believe in coded messages between my country’s enemies,” Marlowe answered, “and my country’s traitors.”

  Grem laughed, though it sounded more like a cry of pain.

  “This manuscript I possess,” he said, “is hundreds, or perhaps even thousands of years old. It transcends your ridiculous contemporaneous suspicions.”

  “I’m certain people tell you all the time,” Marlowe countered, “that you have an odd way of talking.”

  But he sheathed his rapier; Grem lowered his pistol.

  “There,” Marlowe went on, “my weapon is laid to rest. Set aside yours, and let us be on our way to London. I’m in a hurry.”

  Grem stared unblinkingly. “Just like that?”

  “I have urgent business,” Marlowe told him.

  Grem turned to Gelis. “Do I trust him?”

  Gelis withdrew his knife from Grem’s throat and turned to face the road ahead.

  “You trust him,” Gelis answered, “as much as he trusts you. But I will say that Mr. Greene, here, is an honorable man, as far as I can tell, and he needs my help.”

  “And you owe him a debt of conscience,” Grem said.

  Gelis nodded once.

  Grem whistled then, and a boy on horseback appeared out of the darkness.

  “You ride with Gelis, Mr. Greene,” Grem said. “I’m on my horse with my young nephew.”

  Moments later they were on their way, Marlowe once again riding in the Travelers’ cart.

  All he could think about then was John Dee, Elizabeth’s most mysterious confidante. An alchemist and Hermetic philosopher, Dee possessed the greatest library in England. Chief among the Queen’s scholars, he had occasionally tutored Her Majesty, and enjoyed a close relationship with Sir Francis Walsingham. His allegiance was beyond question, or so everyone thought.

  But if Dee was, in fact, receiving coded messages from Philip through Rudolf, the result would be devastating.

  More troubling still was the fact that Dee was currently occupied as the chief tutor of Philip Sidney, and his uncle, Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester. The coincidence was too much for Marlowe. The connection between Ned, Dudley’s acting troupe, Philip Sidney, and the assassination of William the Silent was not remotely clear, but Marlowe was certain that it existed.

  Trying to piece together that puzzle occupied Marlowe until Gelis cleared his throat.

  “You’re deep in thought,” he observed.

  Marlowe nodded.

  “I have no wish to compromise your relationship, whatever it may be, with this man Grem,” he whispered, “but I must have a look at the m
anuscript he is carrying.”

  Gelis looked around. No sign of Grem in sight. Gelis leaned against Marlowe and whispered into his ear.

  “Do you mean,” he asked Marlowe, “this manuscript?”

  He produced a volume, some two hundred and fifty pages of bound vellum, with illustrations on nearly every page.

  “Took it from his person,” Gelis went on, “whilst I had my knife at his throat. Thought you might want to have a look. Don’t think he noticed. Could be wrong.”

  Marlowe stared at the volume. Of all things, his first thought was of Leonora.

  “Miss Beak was right about you,” Marlowe told Gelis. “She had an instinct that you were a man of value. And you are.”

  Gelis looked away.

  Marlowe took the manuscript and spent the next two hours looking over the pages by the light of the lamp on the side of the cart, absorbed by the manuscript’s contents.

  SIXTEEN

  The work was divided into several sections. The first was occupied by botanical drawings, but Marlowe failed to recognize a single plant. The next set of pages had astrological sketches, star charts in radiating circles, with signs of the Zodiac. The third was a bizarre biological chapter filled with drawings of tiny female nudes, most of them pregnant and wading in green pools connected by tubes. He examined the rest only cursorily: a presenting of cosmological medallions; what appeared to be medicinal drawings of plants and roots in jars, and lastly endless pages of text. All baffling owing to the fact that it was written in a language that did not exist. Some letters and all numbers were familiar, but not a single word resembled any that Marlowe knew.

  “I speak seven languages,” he mumbled to Gelis, “read and write twelve more, and am, in all honesty, remarkably adept at breaking codes. But I can make no sense of this thing. It may be the most bizarre object I have ever seen.”

  “Wrong,” Gelis assured him. “Belpathian Grem is the strangest thing you’ve ever seen. What you have there? It’s just a book. Life is infinitely stranger than literature.”

  Marlowe looked up. “And again I marvel at your philosophical bent.”