Eleventh Hour

by M. J. Trow

  ‘You are unattached,’ he shrugged, ‘as am I. And you’re an orphan; I can make an honest woman of you.’

  She blinked, her eyes suddenly full of tears. ‘Are you … are you serious?’

  ‘I am always serious,’ he said. ‘How would it feel to be Lady Ralegh, wife of the Great Lucifer?’

  She pulled herself away, turning and leaning her head against the cool glass. ‘Don’t even joke about it,’ she whispered. ‘We both know that if she ever found out, it would be the end of us both.’

  ‘No,’ he said, smiling. ‘No …’

  ‘She’s a jealous old besom,’ Bess snapped. ‘I’ve tried to love her, tried to understand her, but I can’t. Her teeth are black and rotten. Her paps hang like seaweed on some Godforsaken, gale-wracked coast. Did you know, she’s virtually bald?’

  He shook his head, stroking her satin-smooth shoulder with a warm palm. ‘Too much information, Mistress Throckmorton,’ he said.

  ‘She thinks you – any man, for that matter – is dying for love of her. And she, the Ice Maiden, holds you all off with her coquettish humour. The old crow!’ Bess all but stamped her foot.

  ‘Well,’ Ralegh led her towards the bed. ‘I have been summoned to dine with the old crow on whatever crumbs she wants to feed me – tomorrow, at Placentia. Actually,’ he glanced out at the first light of dawn spreading over to the Queen’s Wharves and the masts riding at anchor below them, ‘make that today. Which gives us, by my old sailor’s reckoning and a fair wind, three hours.’

  And she squealed as he threw her on to the mattress.

  Christopher Marlowe had once been told that every man and woman alive had a season that suited them best and he would always choose the spring. They all had something to be said for them: winter, crisp and invigorating; summer, hot and languid; autumn, with its tint of the fires of Hell and damnation wafting on the air, meat and drink to a poet. But spring was gentle, soft and promising and, although his humour tended to the black, he loved the sound – beneath the hearing and coming as a tantalizing whisper on the breeze – of buds popping. He walked now in Placentia’s gardens with John Dee, brushing his hand on the tops of the clipped box hedges to release their acrid scent.

  Dee was pleased to see him, but confused. ‘How did you know I was here, Kit?’ he asked, a furrow deepening on his brow.

  Marlowe was in a cleft stick of enormous size and struggled to escape without letting Jane down. ‘I … I heard it from … someone …’

  Dee laughed. ‘Christopher Marlowe,’ he said, in mock surprise. ‘I do believe you are caught in a lie. Quickly, quickly, let me get to pen and paper; this day must be marked properly.’ He looked at his companion, who was as surprised as he; lies were his stock in trade and he had felt his tongue tie itself in a knot without his bidding. Dee brought out his hand from where it was tucked inside his coat and between finger and thumb dangled a small piece of twine, twisted and knotted in an intricate design. ‘Don’t worry, Kit,’ he said, shaking it so that the knots fell out and it hung straight and true. ‘My fault entirely. But tell me the truth this time or I will tie the knots tighter and encase it in crystal and you will never lie to man nor beast again.’ He glared at him, but his mouth twitched below his scanty moustaches.

  Marlowe licked his lips and muttered a few test phrases under his breath. All seemed to be well, but he didn’t want to risk a repetition, so he decided on the truth, or what might pass for it. ‘I happened to bump into Mistress Dee and she happened to mention you were here.’ Even as he spoke, he could tell it wasn’t one of his best, but it was better than the last attempt. He looked at Dee and raised an eyebrow.

  Dee pursed his lips and let it pass. ‘That was good of Jane,’ he said, in studied, noncommittal tones. ‘But let us set that aside for now. I’m glad we will have this time to talk without interruption. It’s hard to know these days if anyone is hiding behind an arras or similar furnishing touch. Out here, we should be safe.’

  ‘Safe from eavesdroppers at least,’ Marlowe said. He was always on the lookout for cover adequate to hide an archer or arquebusier skilled enough to kill at a distance and never be found. The unlucky man would hear the pock of the string; the lucky man would go down poleaxed and know no more. ‘Nicholas Faunt came and found me at the Rose.’

  ‘Now, there’s a place where no one can hide,’ Dee said, irony dripping from his tongue.

  ‘Now, don’t worry,’ Marlowe said, clapping him on the shoulder. ‘No one ever eavesdrops on Faunt. At least, they don’t do it twice. Master Sackerson was our only witness.’

  Dee looked solemn. ‘There are men in England,’ he said, ‘who could speak to the bear and find out all he knows.’

  Marlowe looked askance. That really hardly warranted an answer, though he was well aware that Michael Johns was right; there were more things in Heaven and earth than those he knew or even dreamed of.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that!’ Dee said, a trifle waspishly. ‘I’ve seen it done. Barnaby Salazar had a very convincing conversation with his cat, in front of what I would call an audience of the discerning, myself among them.’ He drew himself up and gave himself a little shake, the epitome of outraged dignity.

  Marlowe smothered a smile. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Salazar or the cat?’

  ‘Either.’

  ‘Nothing of note, to be sure. But it was interesting to see. The cat seemed to enjoy the experience, which is more than can be said for most animals which cross Salazar’s path.’ Dee’s face clouded for a moment. ‘Not the sanest of gentlemen sometimes, Barnaby Salazar, but he has some interesting theories, very interesting.’ He wandered off into a brown study and Marlowe left him there for a pace or two.

  ‘But,’ the poet said, bringing the magus back gently to the here and now, ‘the bear aside, we were not overlooked nor overheard. He was wondering if we had made any headway.’

  Dee sighed. ‘I know the answer lies somewhere amongst the gentlemen we spoke of.’ Even when they were alone with only the bushes for company, Dee was circumspect. ‘Within the School of Night, as we sometimes call ourselves; a conceit of Ralegh’s, nothing more, but it describes us well, I fancy,’ he said, then looked thoughtful. ‘Either the answer or the murderer.’

  ‘Or both?’

  ‘Indeed. Or both. Kit, I have been wondering …’ Dee was never sure what Marlowe’s financial standing was. He either lived on fresh air, or being a playwright was a better-paid employment than seemed reasonable to suppose. ‘Do you have a man, these days?’

  Marlowe was startled. ‘A man?’

  ‘Yes, a man. Like Carter, for example.’

  ‘Oh, a man. No, I have done in the past, but I find I do nicely with just a maidservant. And now Tom Watson has … made alternative arrangements, shall we say … perhaps I will keep one in my employ for a little longer than has been usual.’

  ‘We need to move more quickly and relying on you bumping into Mistress Dee accidentally – you never did say where that was, by the way.’

  ‘Hither,’ Marlowe said with a shrug. ‘Thither.’

  ‘As you say, hither, thither, she spends a lot of time there. So, to make things a little easier for us both, I thought I could lend you Carter.’

  ‘To do what? I dress myself and if a button is awkwardly placed, I can always call for Agnes. She is a mistress of the whitening stone, so my linen is always sparkling.’ He shot a cuff to prove his point. ‘And she cooks like an angel.’

  ‘You can’t send Agnes flying around the country on errands though, can you? Apart from the fact she sounds a flighty piece,’ Dee held up his hand as Marlowe drew breath to argue, ‘I just can’t see her delivering clandestine messages, following a miscreant, fighting for your life. Can you?’

  Marlowe had to agree that, multifaceted though Agnes undoubtedly was, those tasks might be beyond her. ‘If you insist, Doctor,’ he said, a trifle sullenly. ‘But there will be none of that sleeping across the doorway, choosing my clothes nonsense.’


  ‘Heaven forefend!’ Dee threw up his hands in mock horror. ‘He will be there to send wherever you need, to do with whatever you wish. Hither, in a word, or thither indeed. His middle name is discretion and he had a brother in the Merchant Venturers in Prague.’

  ‘Had?’

  ‘Poor man died,’ Dee said. ‘Carter was very stoic about it. Took it like an Englishman.’

  Marlowe was still unconvinced, but if it would calm Dee down a little, then it would be worth it. He nodded. ‘Is he here?’

  ‘Yes, in the servants’ quarters. When I have seen the Queen, I will send him to you. Are you back to Hog Lane now?’

  ‘I thought I might set off on my travels from here, but, yes, I can go back to Hog Lane. It was in my mind to start with Ralegh, then perhaps …’

  Raised voices behind them made them turn. There was no anger in the hallooing, just a sense of a giant ego hailing every fellow in his path well met.

  ‘Speak of the Devil and he is bound to appear,’ Dee said, quietly and suddenly they were in the maelstrom within which Walter Ralegh travelled.

  ‘Doctor; this is a rare treat!’ An apparition in silver half armour strode between the apple trees, the sun flashing on the damascened breastplate and pauldrons.

  Dee turned. ‘Sir Walter; a rare treat indeed.’

  ‘How’s the old girl today?’ Ralegh asked when he was close enough to speak softly.

  ‘If you mean Her Majesty,’ Dee bridled a little, ‘she is very well.’

  ‘Delighted to hear it. Who’s this?’

  ‘Sir Walter Ralegh, allow me to introduce Master Christopher Marlowe.’

  ‘Marlowe the playwright?’ Ralegh extended a hand, ignoring Marlowe’s bow.

  ‘The same, sir,’ Marlowe said. ‘I’m flattered that you’ve heard of me.’

  ‘The Great Lucifer not knowing Machiavel?’ Ralegh laughed. ‘The idea! Tell me, Master Marlowe, was Ned Alleyn your choice for Tamburlaine, or was that Henslowe?’

  ‘He’s a fine actor,’ Marlowe said, with a carefully noncommittal expression plastered seamlessly across his face.

  ‘Yes.’ Ralegh nodded. ‘And Alleyn’s not bad either.’ He nudged Marlowe in the ribs but noticed that the playwright was not smiling. ‘You have an audience with Her Majesty? The play’s the thing, I’ll warrant.’

  ‘No, Sir Walter. I have merely come to chat to my old friend the doctor. He can be a hard man to find and, when I do, I make the most of it.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Well, there it is. Don’t suppose you ever wear this stuff, do you, in your line of work?’ He patted the steel across his chest.

  ‘I’ve never found an audience to be that unappreciative,’ Marlowe said. ‘Although, when the day does come, I hope I can rely on you to lend me some old bits of yours.’

  Ralegh laughed, but neither Dee nor Marlowe had yet so much as cracked a smile. There was a sudden flutter from under the trees, not yet in bud, and a lute announced the arrival of the Queen’s ladies, Bess Throckmorton among them. The men bowed.

  ‘Mistress,’ Ralegh called to Bess.

  ‘Sir Walter.’ She curtseyed, hiding her face in case she burst out laughing.

  The men watched as the ladies skipped away over the lawns of Placentia, the lutenist following at a suitable distance. Ralegh looked up at the great walls of the palace, pale in the spring sunshine. He sighed. ‘I expect the Queen intends to bend my ear about the cost of this place. It looks all right from the outside but, trust me, it’s falling apart. Could do with some of your magic, Doctor.’

  ‘I think the Queen prefers your magic these days, Walter,’ Dee said, his mischievous eyes twinkling.

  ‘Yes,’ Ralegh said, but he wasn’t smiling now. ‘Well,’ he patted Marlowe’s arm. ‘“Return with speed, time passeth swift away. Our life is frail and we may die today.”’ He winked and, tucking his plumed helmet into the crook of his arm, strode after the ladies.

  ‘The Great Lucifer,’ Dee murmured when he was out of earshot. ‘Take my advice, Kit, and don’t cross that one. He doesn’t just carry that sword for the look of the thing.’

  Marlowe chuckled. ‘Anybody who can quote Tamburlaine can’t be all bad,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ Dee warned. ‘Don’t forget, that phrase was from Act One, Scene One. He need only have read the first pages.’

  Marlowe’s eyes widened. ‘Now I am even more flattered, Doctor,’ he said. ‘When the Queen’s magus can quote from the work of a cobbler’s son, down to the precise page, the world has indeed turned upside down.’

  Sometimes, when he was not doing anything else, Marlowe let his mind wander back to when he had been carefree. It was not an easy thing to remember that earlier day, when he was not worrying about his father and where his temper might take him; about the choir school and whether he would pass muster with an unbroken voice for just one more Sunday; that his tutor would once again forgive the unfinished paper, the unlearned text. And all of this was to set aside the worries that today may be the day when Nemesis got the better of Euterpe and finished him off, whether or not he had delivered his pages to Tom Sledd.

  As he made his way back from Placentia along the river to the Rose, his mind could rove wherever it wanted, but to his annoyance it kept coming back to Walter Ralegh. The Great Lucifer would have been delighted at that, of course and not in the slightest bit surprised. To him, it was a natural fact that he was the centre of the world – round or flat, the answer was the same. Walter Ralegh first and last; except that he was never last. The man had been hard to read and that was always a red rag to the bull that was Marlowe’s inner sixth sense. He could usually see not just the skull but the innermost thoughts beneath the skin, but with Ralegh, that had been next to impossible. Apart from the fact that he was clearly involved with Bess Throckmorton in a way that would make the Queen froth with rage, he gave little away. He needed watching, that one, and carefully too.

  EIGHT

  Tom Sledd was worried. He sat cross-legged on the apron of the stage and looked out with sombre face into the groundlings’ pit. The smell of slightly spoiled vegetables and slightly soiled groundlings rose up and enveloped him like a mother’s arms. He was born to this job; when Ned Sledd had taken him under his wing after he had been abandoned under his cart as a baby, he had been marked with the mark of Thespis and he could never be happy anywhere else. But even so – he was worried.

  ‘Tom? You look worried.’ A voice spoke near his knee and he looked down, his eyes slowly adjusting to the dark after looking into the sun which flooded the centre of the pit.

  ‘Kit?’ Tom Sledd shielded his eyes for a moment. ‘I wasn’t expecting you today.’

  ‘Well, you know how it can be. I am a little betwixt and between today. I had to be out at Greenwich and then I need to be on the road. A little visit here seemed not too out of my way. How are the rehearsals going?’

  ‘Well. Very well. First night coming up.’

  ‘I know. But …’ Marlowe peered up into Sledd’s face. ‘It’s all going well, is it?’

  ‘Yes. Like I said. Well.’

  ‘Then why do you look so worried? It isn’t the baby, is it? Meg? They are both in good health.’ Marlowe knew that Sledd loved his family above all things, even above the Rose and that was saying something.

  ‘They are blooming, thank you for asking.’

  ‘Then …?’

  Sled jumped down into the groundlings’ pit and stood in the sunbeam, arms spread. ‘Where is the disaster, Kit? Where is the leading man with a quinsy? Where is the lad who plays Abigail coming to me with a voice deeper than my own? Where …?’

  Marlowe laughed. ‘Oh, I see! When you say things are going well, you mean they are going far too well. If there is no disaster here, then it is still looming.’

  ‘You have, as usual,’ Sledd said with a sigh, ‘hit the nail upon the head. Once we finally wrung those pages out of Watson, everything went like a dream. Even the walking gentlemen know how to walk –
and you know how rare that is!’

  Marlowe knew. It was quite incredible that when you put a perfectly normal, intelligent person on a stage and asked him to walk its length, he suddenly had the gait of an ostrich with the ague.

  ‘Alleyn knows his lines.’ Sledd shared this heresy in a hiss.

  ‘No! What? All of them?’

  ‘Every one. And he doesn’t appear to be in love at the moment, either.’

  ‘I would imagine that Mistress Alleyn is glad of that.’ Marlowe watched as a smile tweaked the corner of Sledd’s mouth.

  ‘Burbage. He’s a worry. He hasn’t complained at all about not having the lead. Shaxsper has stopped moaning about not being asked to write more pages. Master Henslowe has stopped badgering me to put up the prices …’

  Marlowe’s eyes nearly fell from his head. ‘I can see why you are concerned, Tom.’

  Sledd laughed at last. ‘I know you think I have lost my mind, Kit, and you may well be right. But I only really feel happy when I have things to worry about. And when everything is going well … I worry.’

  Marlowe spread his arms. ‘I would call that task accomplished, Tom,’ he said. ‘Isn’t worrying about nothing worry enough?’

  ‘It will have to do, I suppose.’ Sledd kicked a turnip out of his way and under the stage, where it elicited a smothered oath from a carpenter mending a plank. ‘Sorry!’ Now he could worry about alienating the stagehands.

  ‘I have something to worry you, if you want to hear about it,’ Marlowe offered.

  ‘Really?’ Sledd’s ears pricked up. ‘What?’

  ‘It is very rudimentary as yet. It has few characters, no plot as such, but it has special requirements that will make your brain spin. Rainbows. The Devil appearing in the flames of Hell. Automata.’ Marlowe sketched it out in the air above his head. ‘People will need to fly. To disappear. Tom – it will be a marvel of the age.’

  Sledd looked intrigued. ‘When will it be ready?’