Marbeck and the Double Dealer

by John Pilkington

  Table of Contents

  The Thomas the Falconer Series by John Pilkington from Severn House

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  The Thomas the Falconer Series

  by John Pilkington from Severn House

  THE RUFFLER’S CHILD

  A RUINOUS WIND

  THE RAMAGE HAWK

  THE MAIDEN BELL

  THE MAPMAKER’S DAUGHTER

  THE JINGLER’S LUCK

  THE MUSCOVY CHAIN

  MARBECK AND

  THE DOUBLE-DEALER

  John Pilkington

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain 2012 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  9-15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

  First published in the USA 2013 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS of

  110 East 59th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022

  eBook edition first published in 2013 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2012 by John Pilkington.

  The right of John Pilkington to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Pilkington, John, 1948 June 11-

  Marbeck and the double-dealer.

  1. Great Britain–History–Elizabeth, 1558-1603-

  Fiction. 2. Anglo-Spanish War, 1585-1604–Fiction. 3. Spy

  stories.

  I. Title

  823.9'2-dc23

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-369-3 (epub)

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8239-4 (cased)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being

  described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this

  publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons

  is purely coincidental.

  This eBook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  ONE

  Marbeck was growing suspicious.

  It wasn’t merely the fact that he had lost three shillings in as many throws. Nor was it because the caster avoided his eye as he tossed the dice, or even because of the way the man appeared to block the light with his body most of the time. It was the air of suppressed excitement Marbeck detected in him whenever he called a number. This time it was seven.

  ‘Seven, sir – alas! Come, your luck must change soon. How much will you hazard?’

  ‘How much would you suggest?’ Marbeck enquired.

  His tone was gentle, though those who knew him might have noticed an edge to it. The caster, however, did not know him. He was a newcomer here – a traveller, he said. He summoned a grin.

  ‘Well now, how can I answer that? You know what remains in your purse, sir, not I.’

  ‘No?’ Marbeck matched the other’s smile. ‘So you didn’t do any rummaging, earlier on? Like asking the landlord who was staying here, what they might be worth, and so forth?’

  ‘Nay, sir, you mistake.’ A look of annoyance crossed the gamester’s face. ‘I’m a stranger here . . . I enjoy a game, and will play at Main Chance with any man who’ll risk a throw.’

  There was a lull in the inn’s conversation. The Dolphin, its air heavy with tobacco smoke and beer fumes, was noisy as a rule. Being outside the walls by Bishopsgate, the place drew customers from the Liberties, but some were travellers putting up for a night. It suited Marbeck to lodge here. Few asked questions – or, indeed, asked anything of him.

  ‘The matter is, I’ve risked several throws now,’ he said. ‘And each time I’ve failed. Yet, whenever you play, you seem to throw a nick and win. What would it take to match your main, I wonder? A new bale of dice, perhaps?’

  There was a cough nearby. Marbeck sensed eyes upon him, but kept his on the dice-caster’s. A touch of pink appeared on the man’s cheeks above his beard. He said: ‘I dislike your words, sir. Were I of a suspicious nature, I might construe them to mean you name me a cheat.’

  ‘Well, why not construe it?’

  Now a silence fell. Outside, a bellman could be heard calling the hour; the doors of Bishopsgate had long since been shut for the night. In the tavern, drinkers regarded the two at the corner table warily. The man with the dice was a heavy-browed fellow, wearing a feathered cap. The other was lean but muscular, neatly dressed in a black doublet. His dark hair and beard were cut short, and he wore neither hat nor ruff. Some recognized him vaguely as a gentleman who had stayed there before. The landlord knew him as a man of unspecified business, who used the name John Sands.

  ‘And if I should do so – what then?’ the dice-caster asked. He wore a dagger at his belt, but Marbeck had none. In fact he was unarmed, which struck some onlookers as rash if you were going to accuse another man of cheating.

  ‘Then you have but two choices.’ Marbeck leaned back from the table. ‘You can permit me to examine your dice – to see there’s no bristle set in a corner, say, nor a face filed down so that it tips over. I’ll weigh them in my hand, in case they’re fullams.’

  The other man was frowning. ‘My other choice?’

  He shifted on his stool, then stood up clumsily, and in so doing knocked the table. The dice fell to the floor, whereupon he stooped to retrieve them – but at once Marbeck was on his feet, too. His hand shot out and grasped the other’s wrist.

  ‘Don’t trouble to make the switch,’ he said. ‘It’s the bale we were playing with I want to see.’ He wrenched the fellow’s arm up, while with his other hand he forced the man’s fingers apart. There was a clatter as the second bale of dice dropped to the floor, but Marbeck didn’t look. Instead, he snatched the first pair and thrust the fellow away. The dice-caster fell back – but as he did so he reached for his poniard.

  ‘You whoreson knave—’

  That, however, was all he said. With a movement so fast that those watching barely saw it, Marbeck banged the side of his closed fist against the other man’s mouth. The fellow reeled and spluttered, still fumbling at his belt, but it was over. In a moment his dagger was taken and thrown aside, and he found himself shoved down on to his stool, from where he stared stupidly up at his assailant.

  ‘Now, that looks interesting.’

  Marbeck was holding one of the dice up to a nearby lantern, peering at it. Watched by what was now a small audience, he reached into a pocket and produced, of all things, a tailor’s bodkin. Leani
ng over the table, he proceeded to pierce the die at one corner, working the point in. Then he shook it – and a groan went up from those nearby, as several shiny droplets fell on to the table-top.

  ‘As I thought – quicksilver.’

  He faced the cross-biter, who was glaring at him, blood about his mouth. ‘Stopped dice,’ he said. ‘Nice workmanship. Who made them – Jacks, in Billingsgate?’

  The other made no answer. Someone sniggered, which prompted others. The tension was broken.

  ‘Well – I have another choice for you, master cogger,’ Marbeck went on. ‘Either return the shillings you took off me with your bale of fullams and leave, or I pass you over to the constable of this parish. I hear he dislikes biters – he’ll likely serve you with a flogging for the pleasure of it.’

  He dropped the die into his left hand and pocketed it, along with his bodkin. There was a pause, but the gamester knew when he had lost. With a savage gesture, he drew coins from his doublet and slammed them down.

  ‘Best take that with you.’ Picking up the man’s dagger, Marbeck stuck it in the table, whereupon someone appeared at his side.

  ‘I’ll decide who stays and who goes, sir, if you please.’

  The speaker was the Dolphin’s landlord, a bulky man with whom few cared to argue. Marbeck turned to him.

  ‘As you wish, Master Hibbert.’

  Hibbert glowered at the dice-cogger, then jerked his thumb in the direction of the doorway. But the man was already up. He drew his hand across his mouth, looked at the blood, then yanked his blade from the table and lurched away. The landlord watched him go out, before facing Marbeck.

  ‘This is no thieves’ den, Master Sands,’ he said.

  ‘I know it.’ Only now did Marbeck relax, and the effect was striking: as if a mask had been pulled off. ‘Indeed, it used to be more of a players’ tavern, did it not?’ he added. ‘Before the ungrateful fellows went south of the river and built themselves a new theatre. To my mind, Shoreditch has never been the same since.’

  Hibbert gave a shrug. ‘I’ll send the drawer over,’ he said. ‘Take a cup of sack for your trouble.’

  ‘It was no trouble.’ Marbeck scooped his shillings off the table. ‘But it grows late . . . I’ll walk up to my chamber. You may send me a mug there.’

  ‘I will,’ the landlord said. ‘Is there aught else you need?’ His eyes moved towards a figure across the room, who was looking at Marbeck. She wore a low taffeta gown, the breasts busked up so high they were almost exposed.

  ‘Another time, perhaps.’

  With a nod Marbeck walked to the stairs. His chamber was at the rear of the inn, facing north towards the Spital Field. Once inside he took off his shoes and sat by the window, leaving the door ajar. Outside it was pitch dark, but he lit no candle. Instead, he waited for the drawer to come up, then took the mug of watered sack from him and closed the door. After taking a drink, he threw himself down on the bed and gazed up at the low ceiling.

  ‘Well, Master Secretary,’ he murmured, placing his hands behind his head, ‘haven’t you let me kick my heels long enough?’

  As if in answer, there was laughter from downstairs. Marbeck listened for a while, then, feeling a yawn coming on, he closed his eyes . . . and an image rose up: of Sir Robert Cecil, the Queen’s Secretary of State, seated behind a desk in his customary black suit and starched ruff. The little hunchback needed cushions to raise him, so as not to appear too short.

  ‘Bravado’s a poor cloak, Marbeck,’ he was saying, wearing a quizzical look that might have conveyed a number of things. Just then it conveyed displeasure.

  ‘If it were anyone else, I might have told you to quit my service long ago,’ Master Secretary had continued. ‘But I need you, despite your impetuousness.’

  Tense as he was, Marbeck had kept silent. Both men knew the trip to Flanders had been a failure – as they both knew it had been no fault of his. What irritated Cecil was the loss of a good agent, caught only minutes before he was about to leave what had been a safe house in Antwerp. Marbeck was luckier: he had escaped with nothing worse than a powder burn to his arm – that and the sickening feeling that stemmed from leaving a fellow intelligencer in the hands of the Spanish. What had happened to the man since, he preferred not to think upon.

  ‘Gifford knew we were in danger there,’ he had said finally. ‘I’d swear to it. He might have warned us – instead, I’ll lay odds he was with his whore in Flushing. Now Moore’s taken – likely racked, or worse – and I’m lucky to be alive.’

  ‘Indeed you are.’

  Cecil never raised his voice, nor had he then. His coolness was legendary. Fixing Marbeck with a steady eye, he had added: ‘Forget about Gifford. I’ll allow he has faults – but at least he follows my instructions. Whereas you seem to think . . .’ He had paused, whereupon Marbeck had spoken up.

  ‘What is it I seem to think, sir?’

  ‘You deal too much in extempore, I was about to say.’

  Master Secretary, who since the death of his distinguished father had become not only the Queen’s right hand but many other things besides, had allowed a note of weariness to enter his voice. ‘You could have been a player, Marbeck, or so I’ve heard. You enjoy taking roles – even at a risk to our main business, I might say. Were you indulging in some such foolery in Holland, when you almost got caught?’

  Marbeck had merely shrugged, whereupon his master had glanced down at the document that lay before him. It was a lengthy intelligence report, written in spidery symbols, that would take his best code-breaker hours to decipher.

  ‘That’s Gifford’s, is it?’ Marbeck had said, his voice flat.

  ‘It’s not your affair. I’ve heard your version of events – now you will leave me to my work. But stay where we can find you. Use the letter-drop in Currier’s Row if need be, or write to me as Coppinger at the Star in Cheapside.’

  ‘For how long must I tarry?’ Marbeck had wanted to know. ‘There’s some business I was . . .’

  But he had broken off, for Cecil had reached for the small bell that stood on his desk. He was a busy man, and that was all the time he would give, even to his best intelligencer. He had rung the bell, the door had opened and Weeks had glided in.

  ‘This man’s leaving,’ the Secretary of State had said.

  Henry Weeks, Clerk to the Council, had blinked at Marbeck through thick spectacles, then looked at his master. ‘Is there . . . remuneration due?’ he had asked in his reedy voice.

  ‘Not at the present time.’

  Cecil had eyed Marbeck as if daring him to protest, but Marbeck knew better. In a matter of minutes he had left Whitehall Palace by a series of passages of increasing dimness and was shown out through a postern gate. He would have walked off, had Weeks not coughed to attract his attention.

  ‘You’re not the only one who grieves,’ he had said. ‘You lost a compatriot in Flanders, yet Master Secretary has lost both his wife and her unborn child, and his beloved father, too – all in the space of a few years. Do you wonder at his temper?’

  ‘I do not,’ Marbeck had replied. ‘And I’ve much respect for him, as I had for his father – whatever you may think, Weeks. Now, if you’ll let me take my leave, I intend to get soused. And since I haven’t been paid, I’d better find somewhere my credit holds, wouldn’t you say?’

  He had proceeded to work off his anger by striding to the Duck and Drake in the Strand, where he had indeed managed to get drunk.

  That was a week ago. Now Marbeck’s enforced idleness was starting to get the better of him. It was more than restlessness: at times it seemed to him as if England – nay, all of Europe – span about him like a whirlwind, while he stood helpless in the centre. A new century had dawned, filled with possibilities, but so far the year 1600 had brought little but woe. War with Spain dragged on as it had for fifteen years, while the one in Ireland seemed to go from bad to worse. His country was beset by troubles – and yet ruled by the cantankerous Elizabeth who, many believed, was losing h
er grasp of affairs. In her sixty-seventh year, it took the Virgin Queen’s women hours to dress and paint her of a morning, to achieve a grotesque parody of the young maid she had once been. More, she had grown erratic – a sore trial to her Council, Marbeck knew, especially Cecil. Though if the man’s patience was in short supply, as always he kept it well under control.

  With a sigh, he turned his mind elsewhere. Despite everything, he refused to surrender to low spirits; such behaviour was mere weakness. Yet, for a man like him, wasting time was the worst kind of penance. There were other places he could be: a large house in Chelsea for one, where Lady Celia Scroop would be pleased to receive him. He saw her in his mind’s eye, smiling expectantly. It had been months . . .

  A loud knocking woke him. He sat up in near darkness . . . how long had he slept? Downstairs, the inn was quiet. He glanced at the window and saw a glimmer: dawn was breaking. Then came another knock, and at once he was up and opening the door.

  ‘Prout. I should have known.’

  Leaving the door wide, Marbeck walked in his stockings to the table where he had left his mug, drained it in one, then found his tinderbox. He struck a flame and lit the candle, and in its guttering light turned to the doleful-looking man in outdoor clothes who was closing the door behind him.

  ‘I guessed you’d be here,’ Nicholas Prout said. ‘You need to find another bolt-hole. You’ll become too familiar.’

  ‘My thanks for the advice,’ Marbeck said. ‘What do you want with me?’

  ‘I carry a message, from Master Secretary.’

  ‘At this hour?’

  ‘He’s worked through the night.’

  Suddenly, Marbeck felt relief: at last something was happening. Reining in his impatience, he waited while Prout drew a folded paper laboriously from his sleeve and handed it to him. It was an order in Cecil’s own hand, instructing him to go to the Marshalsea prison, collect intelligence from a person who had been questioned and bring it to him – not at Whitehall, but at his home in the Strand.

  He lowered the paper. ‘Do you know what this is about?’

  Prout shook his head. ‘But there was a codicil – a verbal one. He says Sangers will await you.’