His shoulders sank. “I fear very little in this life.”
She put her hand on his leg. “You are the bravest Traveling man I know.”
“But I am afraid of the Weird King.” He avoided her eyes.
She leaned closer to him. “As am I, Gelis.”
“As am I,” the boy squeaked from beneath his covers.
“You want to be gone from him,” said Gelis’s wife.
“I do,” he answered. “Not for what he might do to us, but for what he might do in the larger world. He’ll bring strange forces to bear upon those around him. I feel it. I have no wish to be punished for his odd ways, or tainted by the mystic damage he might do.”
“He has a strange power,” she agreed. “We should leave now.”
The boy rolled out of the covers and jumped up.
“So let’s get started.”
Gelis beamed. “I love you both, you know.”
“You’d love a donkey if it agreed with you, Father,” the boy said, patting Gelis on the shoulder as he slipped out of the cart.
“Where does he get that sort of an attitude?” Gelis asked his wife.
She looked away, raising her eyebrows. “I wonder.”
* * *
As dawn drew back night’s black curtain, Ned Blank awoke in his hammock, a paltry bed strung between two posts behind a dockside pub. He rubbed his eyes, and then his belly.
A shilling and a pence could get him a dozen eggs, and he knew he could eat them all. With the money he’d earned in the theatre and the ten shillings he’d pinched from Paget’s purse, he could eat his fill, still have ale, and be quite content.
Swinging his feet onto the ground, he stretched.
“Beautiful morning,” he said to the huge wharf rat nearby.
The rat lumbered off quite lazily as Ned took down his rope hammock and packed it into his shoulder bag. He was still dressed in his Romeus doublet and bright green stockings. He’d managed to get most of the makeup off his face, and his back was feeling much better. Money in his pocket, a good night’s sleep, a starring role, and the promise of a great breakfast: things were looking up.
He sniffed and decided to walk around to the front door of the pub, just as if he were an ordinary patron, instead of slipping in the back through the kitchen. The sun on the Thames made the river golden and, for an instant, everything in the world was beautiful.
Ned shoved through the doorway and into the pub. It was not quite empty. A single serving man, no doubt the proprietor of the establishment, eyed Ned as he entered. Sitting behind the bar, he was dressed in drab brown with a soiled apron, and a weary frown. Another man was asleep at a table in the corner. Two women were talking to each other in low, grumbling tones. Ned took them for street whores at the end of a long night’s work. He steered for a table as far away from them as he could manage, and sat down.
“Eggs, as many as you have, any style, a bit of mutton if it’s not too old, and ale.” He held up his fat purse to the serving man.
The man’s eyes opened a bit wider.
“The eggs is boiled, the mutton’s last night, and the ale is juniper, eh?”
“Perfect,” Ned agreed. “Six eggs.”
“That’ll make it a shilling with everything,” the man warned.
Ned smacked a shilling on the table at once and lifted his chin. “And I may want more eggs than that.”
“Yes, sir,” the man said, standing up at once.
Sir, thought Ned, grinning. Never been called that before.
The two women had taken notice of Ned’s show, and were looking his way.
“Don’t bother,” Ned said to them sternly. “I’m an actor.”
They both rolled their eyes and went back to complaining to each other.
Ned leaned back, idly running lines in his head as he often did in the morning, just to keep his memory crisp. He was so absorbed he barely noticed the two men who entered the place and stood in the doorway. Until one of them called out to him.
“Are you Ned Blank?”
Ned licked his lips. “What?”
“Are you the actor Ned Blank?”
The men were dressed in dark blue uniforms that bore a patch, a flourish of red above a helmet and a solid red horizontal bar. It looked to be a family crest, possibly a royal one.
“Who?” Ned snapped, exaggerating his irritation.
One of the drunken women spoke up. “He says he’s an actor!”
“I am,” Ned said indignantly. “Name of Burbage—greatest actor of the age.”
The men moved silently toward him. One of them said, “I see.”
“I’m trying to have a nice little breakfast,” Ned complained. “And I’m famished for it. Do you mind?”
The guards moved quickly, on to each side of Ned’s chair.
“Come along with us,” one said, grabbing Ned under the arm.
“I will not!” Ned objected as the second guard took his other elbow.
“I’ve seen Burbage,” the first man said. “You’re half his age. And, incidentally, I also saw you as Ophelia in Kyd’s Hamlet. You were quite brilliant.”
They dragged him up from the table and toward the door.
“Here!” The proprietor shouted emerging from the kitchen. “What about them eggs!”
“Where are you taking me?” Ned moaned.
“Hampton Court, I’m afraid,” the guard said almost apologetically. “See Lord Walsingham.”
“Bleeding Christ,” Ned muttered. “Why?”
“Paget, Morgan, and Kyd,” the other guard answered harshly.
“Oh.” Ned’s courage gave out, and he allowed himself to be dragged along.
As they muscled through the door the owner shouted again, “What about this food?”
“He’s left a shilling on the table,” the first guard said.
“My Ophelia was good, wasn’t it?” Ned said to him softly.
“I’m not ashamed to admit that I cried when you were dead.”
“Well,” Ned said, hobbling along between the two larger men, “that’s something.”
* * *
In the Queen’s bedchamber, as Her Majesty sat before an array of mirrors, Blanche Parry stood nearby, holding several papers. Blanche was in a blue and gold dress with a high white collar. The Queen was still in her purple morning robe.
Blanche and Elizabeth had known each other for fifty years; Blanche was Chief Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber, one of the very few who controlled access to the Queen. She was also in charge of the Queen’s personal papers and presents given to the Queen; passed sensitive intelligence to her, and supervised the care of the royal ferret.
But it was not espionage or animal husbandry that brought her to the Queen that morning.
“You may recall the masque, your Majesty,” Blanche said to the back of the Queen’s head. “A woman comes to you whilst you are walking in a garden. She wants you to choose between her daughter’s two suitors.”
Elizabeth turned. “And her daughter is the Lady of May, I remember now. It was such a charming masque. Entangling theatre and reality in such a manner—where did the play begin and life end? I actually judged each suitor’s talents, yes?”
Blanche barely took notice of the fact that the Queen had not used the royal “we.”
“Yes.” Blanche smiled, consulting the papers she was holding. “A crowd of people gathers: six foresters and six shepherds, including the suitors and the Lady of May. Something else happens and then the suitors begin their singing competition. You judge who sings the best, and the play continues according to which man you choose.”
“Yes, yes,” the Queen said, “the play has no determined ending, it entirely depends on my decision. I was delighted.”
“You were,” Blanche confirmed.
“And you say that Sidney has rewritten some parts? That is why he petitions for a showing of the masque here at court?”
“It says here,” Blanche answered, again consulting her papers, “that
new songs have been invented, and a secondary argument between a school teacher and shepherd has been added.”
“How exciting,” Elizabeth said calmly, turning back to her mirrors once more. “Let’s have it. Sometime soon, don’t you think?”
“It shall be arranged, Your Majesty,” Blanche said, bowing only slightly, and backing away toward the door of the bedchamber.
“Does Sidney still love Penelope?” the Queen asked just as Blanche opened the door to leave.
“Oh,” Blanche answered, sighing, “who can say what is in the hearts of young men?”
“I’m more worried about Penelope’s brain,” the Queen said, “than I am about Philip Sidney’s heart.”
Blanche inclined her head. “Are we certain that there actually is a brain in that lovely head?”
Elizabeth laughed softly as Blanche closed the door.
TWENTY-SEVEN
ZUTPHEN, THE NETHERLANDS
Marlowe woke up screaming. The other men around the fire sat up. Lopez stood over him.
Marlowe looked up at the doctor.
“I dreamed that the Bell Inn was filled with wild swine,” Marlowe said, gasping, “and Leonora was drowning in blood, calling my name.”
Lopez nodded. “The dead are never silent; although very few can hear them cry.”
“God in heaven,” Marlowe sat up.
“Leonora Beak?” the singer Egun asked, propping himself up on one elbow. “The one who helped Gelis and his family?”
Marlowe stared, regaining his composure. “Did you know her?”
“Gelis told me about her—and you,” Egun said. “She calls out to you because her spirit is unsettled.”
“Yes.” Marlowe nodded.
“So why are you here,” Egun asked, “instead of in England, finding revenge on the one who killed her?”
Marlowe stared into the fire. “I was told to come here.”
“I was told to fight the English, but here I am with you,” Egun countered. “I was told to fear God, but I only fear God’s men here on earth. I was told—”
“I understand,” Marlowe interrupted, standing.
He began to pace around the fire.
“Once you conclude your work here,” Lopez suggested calmly, “you are free to return to England to pursue your murder investigations, am I correct?”
Marlowe nodded, still pacing.
“Then you should get on with your work here in Zutphen.” Lopez stood.
Marlowe turned his eyes to the eastern horizon. A sliver of silver cracked between the earth and the sky. Dawn was at hand.
“We’ll join the fighting today, then,” he said.
“Good,” Egun said, lying back down. “I’m going back to sleep until then. Wake me up when it’s time to kill Spaniards.”
He was snoring a minute later.
But Marlowe was wide awake. He drew Lopez a few feet away from the circle of men and whispered low.
“You understand what I have been told to do,” he said to Lopez, “but how can I do it?”
Lopez nodded. “Pull the hammer back, take aim, squeeze the trigger.”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“This is not a philosophical question,” Lopez chided. “You make the matter too complicated with all your thinking: future poems, tangled love affairs, sympathetic understanding. Do the job. Pull the trigger.”
Marlowe lowered his voice so that it was barely audible. “The man saved my life in the woods only a few hours ago!”
Lopez shook his head. “Sometimes I forget how young you are.”
“This has nothing to do with my age,” Marlowe railed. “I’m talking about a debt, a blood debt.”
Lopez bit his upper lip for a moment. “You cared for Leonora Beak.”
“She was second only to you in valor,” he answered immediately, “and as brave a traveling companion.”
“She saved your life.”
“Probably several times,” Marlowe said.
“Then you owe her a blood debt too,” Lopez told him.
“I do.”
“There is only one obstacle between you and the repayment of that debt. And the elimination of that obstacle is also your duty to your Queen.”
Marlowe glanced in Sidney’s direction. He was sleeping peacefully, curled up on his side, his face illuminated by the fire. It was the face of a cherub.
“How can treachery live in such a vessel?” Marlowe wondered.
Lopez stared at Sidney. “Satan has the power to assume a pleasing shape.”
“But can the devil write the way that man does?”
Lopez offered a wan smile.
“Oh, my friend. The devil has written most of the great poetry of humankind.”
The sun littered the horizon with splinters of gold, and several larks began to sing. A mourning dove, then a woodpecker, and then small wrens—all joined in.
It was morning.
* * *
Several hours later, on the banks of the River Berkel, the odd conglomeration of Travelers, Basque rebels, English poets, and a single Portuguese Jew lay on the ground, surveying a small encampment of Spaniards just across the water.
The sun was behind them, and the Spaniards were just waking up.
“This is the small group,” Lopez whispered close to Marlowe’s ear, “that brought Gérard into the Netherlands. Half of them are spies, all of them are vicious mercenaries, better fighting men than the ordinary Spanish troops. If we can eliminate them, the English cause will be greatly advanced.”
Marlowe nodded. “This is a very strange war.”
“It’s gone on for nearly twenty years,” Lopez agreed, “and little sign of an end in sight.”
“Let’s get on with it!” Sidney whispered harshly.
He lay on his belly on the other side of Marlowe.
Only twenty minutes earlier Marlowe had taken Sidney aside and told him the fabricated plan: Marlowe and Sidney would first engage in battle, then lose themselves in the fray, slip away from the fighting, and meet one of the spies from the Spanish camp. From there they would be spirited away, eventually back to Scotland, Castle Moil, where Mary’s agents would relate the next phase of operations.
It was barely plausible, but Sidney wanted to believe it, and so he did. The fact that Marlowe had peppered his story with references to Penelope, even hinting that she might actually be waiting at Castle Moil, fueled Sidney’s faith.
Lopez held up his hand. The men readied themselves. Marlowe checked the inflated lamb’s bladder that Egun had given him, checked it for the third time.
“I hate the water,” he muttered underneath his breath.
“I know,” Lopez said. “The lamb’s bladder will keep you afloat, high in the water. Don’t worry.”
“I’ll float until some Spanish scab shoots an arrow through this thing!” Marlowe snapped nervously.
“The sun is still low,” Lopez said, “and in their eyes. They probably won’t see us at all, and they certainly won’t be expecting an attack from the riverbank.”
“Because to attack them from the riverbank,” Marlowe said, “you would have to be insane.”
“Exactly.”
Lopez lowered his arm, and all the men slowly crawled toward the river.
Marlowe tried to occupy his mind with other thoughts: roast quail, random lines of poetry, Penelope’s thighs.
In no time at all he was in the water, slowly pushing toward the far shore. He was astonished at how little noise two dozen men were making. His fears ebbed. Lopez was by his side, his pistols were dry on his back, and the water wasn’t half as cold as he’d imagined. Moments later his feet felt the slimy river bottom, the beginning of the shore, and his heart slowed a little.
No one in the Spanish camp had seen them.
When all of Lopez’s men arrived at the edge of the bank, bending low behind the tall grass on the bank, Lopez crawled forward onto the land, dragging his flotation device with him. One by one each man followed.
“Eliminate the muskets and musketeers first,” Lopez whispered to Marlowe. “Pass that along.”
Marlowe whispered to Sidney, Sidney told Egun, and in seconds each man understood.
Without another word Lopez leapt up, sword in one hand, pistol in the other, and roared incoherently, raging toward the camp.
The rest of the men were up, shrieking like tortured souls, and the battle was joined.
The small encampment was haphazardly littered along the bank: two small tents, one larger, sleeping soldiers under blankets on the ground, and several smoky fires. Only a few of the soldiers were up and about. A lean young man, shirtless, carrying water back for morning cooking, was the first to die.
Marlowe and Lopez charged together toward the largest tent, assuming that the occupant was the commander of the small force. But before they could get close enough to find out for certain, a tall man with a black mustache and a musket in each hand emerged through the opening and fired.
One of the musket balls tore through the morning air between Marlowe and Lopez and hit Egun in the side. The other rifle killed a boy of twelve, armed with a handmade knife.
A second later two men leapt from behind a smaller tent. Both landed on Lopez and sent him tumbling. Marlowe’s rapier caught one of the soldiers in his knife hand before a third Spaniard came up from behind and stabbed Marlowe in his already-wounded arm just below the elbow.
Marlowe whirled around. His attacker was a boy of fifteen years or so, chin forward, teeth bared, face filled with insensate rage—someone too young to know that he could die.
Marlowe flicked his rapier against the boy’s blade and smiled.
The boy lunged, roaring.
Marlowe stepped aside and the boy stumbled forward, stabbing air.
Marlowe cut the boy’s side as he flew by, and hit him in the back of the head with the hilt of his dagger.
The boy skidded across the ground, losing his rapier. Marlowe jumped and landed on the boy’s sword, snapping it at the hilt.
The boy rolled over on his back to reveal a pistol in his hand, cocked and pointed at Marlowe’s chest. Marlowe kicked it out of his hand and the gun went off, showering the boy with powder and sparks.
Marlowe was about to say something to the boy when he saw that Lopez was still on the ground, wrestling with his two assailants. Marlowe glanced back at the boy, shrugged, and stabbed him in the heart.
The English Agent Page 23
