Eleventh Hour

by M. J. Trow

  ‘He’s dead,’ Sledd remarked.

  ‘Marlowe?’ Sometimes, Henslowe found Sledd’s conversation hard to follow.

  ‘No! Walsingham.’ But Sledd’s attention was no longer in the little attic room. He had seen, far below, a gangly figure leaning over the wall of the Bear Pit, having a word with Master Sackerson. ‘Watson!’ he breathed and was gone.

  Tom Watson rarely went into any building without first looking carefully around the door. Enemies lurked in every shadow and ranged in shape and size from the smallest serving wench to the largest outraged creditor, with all kinds of fathers, husbands and brothers in between. But the coast seemed to be clear, so he edged in carefully, his sheaf of papers held before him like a peace offering. He leapt as a voice sounded in his ear. It was the second time that morning that he had almost died of shock.

  ‘Master Watson. My pages, I presume.’ Sledd’s voice sounded as though it should belong to something scaly basking on a rock.

  ‘Ah!’ Watson’s nerves were on a knife-edge. He had a lot on his mind and he didn’t take tension well. He had had what could only be called a tricky interview with Esmeralda, the Winchester goose who had filled his bed last night; she always claimed Egyptian blood and she certainly was showing it today. His ear still smarted where she had caught him a nasty one with the heel of her shoe. Add to that Agnes, who was feeling slighted, and Emily, for whom he was watching most carefully and it was no surprise that Tom Watson was a worried man. He supposed that he would still be welcome at Thomas Walsingham’s place at Scadbury, buried deep in the Kent countryside as it was and far from London, but he had a vague feeling that he owed him a couple of poems and at least one revel.

  ‘Well said,’ Sledd said, taking the paper with a pinch of finger and thumb. ‘About time. Now, bugger off.’ Dressers were hard enough to come by, God knew, and letting Watson hang around was tantamount to pandering.

  Watson needed no further bidding. Like a louse in the bedding, he scuttled off, hoping to find a nice warm – and more especially undemanding – home elsewhere. ‘I’ll be at Scadbury then,’ he called, ‘if anyone needs me.’

  ‘Lovely,’ said Sledd, taking the pages into the space behind the painted flats which he laughingly called his library. True, there were a few books of collected plays on the single shelf that held on to the wall more by luck than carpentry. Like many people with a skill for making things, Tom Sledd had better things to do with his time when not actually engaged in his employment than to put up shelves and other footling pursuits. In vain had his good lady been begging for the door to the press in their bedroom to be mended and it fell off and brained their little maid-of-all-work on an almost daily basis.

  Tom Sledd had been brought up in the hardest of all theatrical genres, that of the travelling players. The scenery for them was whatever backdrop the town or village in question had to offer, so many a time he had played the Maid of Orleans against the wall of an inn or ramshackle fence. He had always had the dubious pleasure of playing the female parts, being small of chin, big of eye and rather fluting as to voice, back in the day. His playbooks were the old stagers, Ralph Roister Doister and other gems from the pen of Nicholas Udall. A couple of John Lyly’s. He hadn’t had to use one yet, but sometimes it had been close, very close.

  He sat down now to read Watson’s extra pages. They were neatly written, at least, and not at all bad. He had taken on Marlowe’s style admirably, the thundering metre, the mighty line. The spelling was as accurate as you might expect for a poet who was drunk half the time and fornicating the other three quarters. Sledd nodded; yes, these extra speeches would come in very nicely indeed. He ran a few lines through his head.

  Now I remember those old woman’s words,

  Who in my wealth would tell me winter’s tales,

  And speak of spirits and ghosts that glide by night

  About the place where treasure hath been hid.

  And now methinks that I am one of these;

  For, whilst I die, here lives my soul’s sole hope,

  And when I die, here shall my spirit walk.

  Oh, yes, Sledd knew, New Alleyn would love this bit. What he’d just read in seconds, the Great Tragedian would take a full five minutes to roll out.

  Shaxsper was annoyed, there was no getting away from it. He had seen that idiot Watson turn up with his grubby bits of paper; rubbish, you could tell even from a distance. He leaned on the wall over the Bear Pit and communed with its only occupant. Master Sackerson was looking a bit moth-eaten these days, even his best friends would admit, but it was spring, and in the spring, an old bear’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of moulting. To that end, the bear was standing on his hind legs and rubbing his back luxuriantly against the wall, accompanying this activity with pleased little grunts. Shaxsper watched him; how wonderful to have nothing in your mind but scratching that itch. He had an itch he couldn’t scratch; jealousy of almost everyone he knew. Marlowe for being a better playwright and having more hair. Sledd for being Henslowe’s favourite, having more hair and a wife who could stand him being in the house. Alleyn and Burbage for actually being able to act. It was true that the constant wigs Burbage was forced to wear for the character parts were taking their toll on his hair, but still, they got all the glory. Will Shaxsper sighed. The sap was rising, the birds were singing and here he was, leaning over a wall and talking to a bear. He allowed himself to wallow in misery; perhaps he should put the mood to work and go and carry on with the play he was mulling over. There was that Island thing that Marlowe had suggested. And surely, the Warwickshire man could make a better fist of a tight-fisted old Jew than Barabbas. Sherlock, perhaps? Yes, that was a good name. But always his thoughts ran to the historical and fluttered to rest on the soul of poor, mad old Henry VI.

  He was pulled from his brown study by a polite cough behind him. He turned. Two men stood there, unalike in appearance except that they shared the same slightly weaselly expression.

  The taller of the two doffed his cap. ‘Master Henslowe?’ he asked, deferentially.

  Shaxsper was torn. It was good to be taken for a man of substance, who owned the Rose – and most of the streets around it, if even some of the gossip were true. On the other hand, Henslowe was old enough to be his father, at the very least and looked every minute of it. He decided to be moderately pleased, with a veneer of affront.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I am William Shakespeare.’ He paused. Nothing. ‘Actor and playwright.’

  The men stepped back in perfect unison. ‘Playwright!’ the shorter one said, doffing his cap also. ‘I wonder, do you know Master Marlowe?’

  Shaxsper sighed. ’Twas ever thus. ‘We’re great friends, yes,’ he said, in a tone which belied the words. ‘If you’re looking for Kit, though, you are having bad luck today. He isn’t here.’

  ‘Oh, no, no,’ the taller, rather more thickset one said quickly. ‘We don’t know Master Marlowe as such. We know of him.’

  Shaxsper nodded. At least these two were honest. ‘So,’ he said, suddenly anxious to carry on his one-sided conversation with the bear, ‘if you want Master Henslowe, you’ll find him in the theatre. But I warn you … he doesn’t buy anything at the door and it’s no good asking for a donation of any kind; he doesn’t give at the door either.’

  ‘We’re actors,’ the smaller one explained. ‘We saw a bill in the alehouse down there, saying the theatre is in need of extra walking gentlemen.’

  Shaxsper raised a sardonic eyebrow. ‘You’re actors?’ he asked, dubiously.

  ‘In a small way.’ The taller one blushed and looked down as he traced an aimless pattern in the dust with his toe. ‘Nothing major, just a few tours in the provinces, you know.’ He nudged his companion. ‘What was that thing we did, Ing, that thing, you know, the one with the dog?’

  His friend put a finger to his lip and looked skywards, mumming an air of deep thought with little success. ‘Sorry, Nick,’ he said. ‘I just can’t put a name to it.’ He looked at Shaxsper and
the eyes were no longer vague, but like daggers looking for a target. ‘But we’re very good.’ He rammed his hat back on his head and pointed at the Rose, settling in her midday sleep before the afternoon show. ‘Through there, is it?’

  Shaxsper nodded. He felt a chill run down from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet.

  The shorter man shook his head indulgently. ‘You must excuse my friend,’ he said to Shaxsper. ‘He forgets his manners when he thinks there may be a role for him. The play’s the thing, you know. Let me introduce ourselves. He,’ and he gestured to where his companion was shouldering open the wicket, ‘is Nicholas Skeres. I am Ingram Frizer. So glad to have made your acquaintance, Master Shakeshaft.’ And with a purposeful stride, he set off up the slope of the lane, leaving Shaxsper alone with the bear.

  FIVE

  Marlowe had been to Barn Elms before, taking the darkling river where its strange eddies ran counter to the seaward flow. Neither he nor the boatman was in the mood to talk, the man cloaked and booted against the coming night. An owl hooted in the darkening woods as the boat’s torch guttered in the shifting wind.

  Marlowe pressed a coin into the boatman’s hand and was already on the wooden planks of the jetty when he heard the man ask, ‘Is it true, then? Is Sir Francis dead?’

  Marlowe looked at him, for the first time under the hood, not at it. London boatmen, he knew, were the nosiest in the world. They kept their own counsel, but made it their business to find out everybody else’s. On the other hand, it could be that the man was an intelligencer for Rome. Nobody’s virtue was over-nice.

  ‘Sir Francis who?’ he asked.

  The boatman scowled, muttered something under his breath and hauled up his oars, the river water flying like dark moths through the dusk, wood rattling on wood until he had vanished into the darkness.

  Marlowe turned to the house. It loomed as a black bulk below the tallest elms, its windows pinpoints of candlelight. From somewhere, a dog barked and the playwright heard footsteps on the path, a pale winding way under the rising moon. His hand went to the dagger at his back; even in a house of mourning, especially this house of mourning, there was danger.

  ‘Mylles.’ Marlowe shook the man’s hand as he became clearer with proximity.

  ‘Welcome, Master Marlowe,’ the retainer said. ‘Lady Walsingham is expecting you.’

  ‘How is she, Mylles?’ Marlowe liked Ursula Walsingham. Even when her late husband was at his most devious and his temper frayed beyond repair, Ursula was always steady, reassuring. She reminded Marlowe of his own mother, radiating trust and love in a cruel world.

  ‘She is Lady Walsingham,’ Mylles said with a shrug and they both knew that said it all.

  ‘You were with Sir Francis?’ Marlowe asked as they took the path through the knot garden. ‘When he died?’

  ‘I was, sir,’ Mylles said. ‘And Master Faunt not long after.’

  ‘You sent for him?’

  ‘Not exactly, sir. He wasn’t due until the next day. Came early, he said, on a whim.’

  Marlowe raised an eyebrow but it was a gesture lost in the dark. ‘A whim, Mylles?’ Both men knew Nicholas Faunt. Whims were something he did not do.

  ‘It’s not for me to question the master’s people, sir,’ Mylles said. Since Marlowe was one of them, that was gratifying in a way. But in another, it wasn’t. Francis Walsingham was the Queen’s Spymaster, playing the most dangerous game a man could. If no one questioned his people, what, in the end, could keep him safe?

  ‘Tell me about the last day,’ Marlowe said, getting into step with the man as they reached the gravel path.

  Mylles stopped. They would be at the side door in a moment and he didn’t want to be talking about this when they reached it. He focused for a moment, searching Marlowe’s face, reading there what he could. Marlowe could wear his heart on his sleeve or hidden up it; he let Mylles see enough to know it was safe to talk. ‘He had not been well for some time, as you probably know,’ he murmured, in case the fountains had ears. ‘He couldn’t sleep and was worried about the Irish business.’

  ‘Irish business?’

  Mylles shrugged. ‘I was never quite sure what it was, sir. The Queen’s business, for sure. We all did our best for him, calming him down, warming his feet. He was a troubled man towards the end.’

  ‘How long have you been with him, Mylles?’ Marlowe asked.

  ‘These fourteen years, sir,’ the man remembered. ‘I was with Sir Christopher Hatton before that.’

  ‘We’ll leave that stone unturned, Mylles,’ Marlowe nodded. Of all the noddies that fluttered around the court, Christopher Hatton was the most stupid. ‘Did anybody come to see Sir Francis, on the last day, I mean?’

  ‘I wasn’t there in the morning, sir,’ the retainer told him. ‘In the afternoon, Master Patchmore turned up.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘Local farmer, sir. Holds property beyond Barn Elms. He’s been at loggerheads with Sir Francis for years over grazing rights in the lower meadow. I saw him off.’

  ‘So he didn’t actually see Sir Francis?’

  ‘No, sir.’ Mylles scowled. ‘He did not. Grasping skinflint. You’d think he’d be proud to have a man like Sir Francis as his neighbour. Master Williams came later.’

  ‘Rowland Williams?’ Marlowe checked.

  ‘The same, sir. You must know him, I’m sure.’

  Marlowe did. After Nicholas Faunt, there was no one more slippery in the Spymaster’s employ and Marlowe did what he could to stay out of his way. ‘What did he want?’

  Mylles chuckled. The house had been a house of mourning for days, everything muffled and swathed in deepest black. Marlowe, the retainer noticed, had tied a black velvet ribbon to his right sleeve, death on his sword arm. Only certain rooms were lit now against the night; the others lay in the darkness of the coming clouds. Everyone was creeping around, afraid of their own footfalls, whispering in corners, avoiding the light. Perhaps at last Mylles could allow himself a small chuckle. ‘Of all the men who wore Sir Francis’s livery, Master Marlowe, I was probably the only one who didn’t listen at the foot of a stair.’

  ‘All right.’ Marlowe folded his arms now that they had reached the side door. There were certain things that could not be discussed where walls may well have ears. ‘How long did he stay?’

  ‘Master Williams? About an hour, perhaps more.’

  ‘Where was this, in Sir Francis’s private quarters?’

  ‘His inner sanctum, sir, yes.’

  ‘You saw Williams leave?’

  ‘I escorted him to his horse myself.’

  ‘He didn’t come by river, then?’

  ‘No sir. Told me he was bound for Nonsuch.’

  ‘And no one else came calling?’

  ‘No one, sir. Oh, only Sir Walter Ralegh.’

  ‘Kit. How are you?’

  In her black, Ursula Walsingham looked as regal and unperturbed as ever.

  ‘My lady.’ Marlowe bowed.

  ‘My lady!’ she tutted. ‘I think it’s more than time you called me Ursula, don’t you?’

  He smiled and shook his head. ‘Ursula,’ he said. ‘I don’t have the words.’

  She looked surprised. ‘Yes, you do,’ she scolded gently. ‘You’re a playwright. What do men say of you – “the Muses’ darling”? “All fire and air”?’

  Marlowe wanted to laugh, but in this hall of sorrow, it didn’t seem quite right. ‘I am paid for those words,’ he said. ‘The day job. They’re not from the heart.’

  ‘I know you, Kit Marlowe,’ she closed to him and put a gentle hand on his sleeve. ‘All your words are from the heart. All your mighty lines.’

  ‘But in the case of Sir Francis …’ Marlowe began. She held a finger to his lips.

  ‘I assume it is that very case that brings you here.’

  ‘My lady … Ursula, I assure you …’

  ‘Dear boy.’ She took him by the arm. ‘Come and warm yourself. I still have a fire in the solar for al
l it’s April and that river freezes a man’s marrow. Let me see; it will have gone something like this. Poor Francis meets his maker and Nicholas Faunt suspects murder.’

  ‘He told you that?’ Marlowe was surprised. Nicholas Faunt was a lot of things, but loose-lipped was not one of them.

  ‘Other than his name, Nicholas Faunt has never told me anything. Anything that is true, anyway. That’s why he is so good at what he does; why Francis kept him on. No, Faunt didn’t have to say anything; I know how his mind works. He will have assumed poison. He will then have asked himself who, among Francis’s golden lads, has the experience of things like that. The first name on his list will have been yours.’

  ‘I’m flattered,’ Marlowe said, allowing Ursula to lead him towards the marbled passageway.

  ‘You’ve spoken to Mylles already?’

  ‘I have,’ Marlowe said. ‘I may need to do so again.’

  ‘Salt of the earth, Mylles,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t have wished Francis a better manservant. Now you’ll talk to me. You’ll want to see the other servants. Oh, and Francis’s inner sanctum, where he …’ for the first time, her voice betrayed her, but she sniffed and swept on. ‘And of course, you’ll want to talk to Frances too.’

  ‘If I may,’ Marlowe said.

  Ursula stopped. ‘I want you to be careful with Frances, Kit,’ she said. ‘She adored her father and she’s been through a lot lately.’

  Careful, Marlowe repeated in his head. What an odd choice of word. Gentle, perhaps. Understanding. Tender, even. But … careful? The Muses’ darling assured the widow of Barn Elms that he would.

  Ursula Walsingham had been thoroughly honest; Marlowe was sure of that. But the Spymaster had been a careful man. He had warned too many of his people to be wary of what they said between the sheets; pillow talk could rack a man, drive iron into his bowels, crush his windpipe with hemp. He applied the same criteria to his own wife, not because he didn’t trust her, but because the less she knew, the less she could tell. He had kept her safe always, as he had kept the Queen safe. There was a price on the head of the Jezebel of England and there was not on the head of Ursula Walsingham. Or was there? Walsingham’s people were everywhere, hunting Jesuits, stamping out Popery, but there were always cracks in the pavement, holes in the wainscoting. And every man who passed in the street was a smiler with a knife.