A Prisoner in Malta

by Phillip DePoy

  It was a very plausible improvisation.

  “Christ,” Marlowe complained loudly to everyone in earshot. “This is a mess!”

  The other guards came running.

  “Get in there,” the Kettering shouted, “we’ve got men escaping!”

  The guards shoved Lopez aside and rushed in. The Kettering man paused at the door.

  “I don’t understand what’s going on,” he said to Marlowe. “Maybe you ought to wait here a moment.”

  “No, thank you, mate,” Marlowe sang out. “You can’t keep your prisoners inside. And, see, that’s really the purpose of a prison, ain’t it? Keeping prisoners inside? So, no, I’m not staying here, not with them vermin about.”

  “And I’ve got to tend to your guard here,” Lopez said urgently. “He’s badly wounded.”

  “I don’t—I don’t know,” the Kettering man stammered.

  Suddenly there was much shouting from within the prison hallway.

  “We’ve got one dead, one wounded,” someone was shouting, “and all—all of the men in the hole—they’re out!”

  “Out?” the Kettering man exploded. “Bleeding Christ! How the hell did they get the ladder down?”

  He turned and ran into the prison stronghold.

  Marlowe and Lopez stood frozen for a stunned moment, looking around, both unable to quite believe that the plan had, for the most part, succeeded.

  “Let’s go, then,” Marlowe urged softly.

  “Immediately,” Lopez agreed.

  With that they both strode quickly toward the gate, and their waiting comrades, dragging their prize between them.

  * * *

  The Ascension had already cast off most of her lines by the time Marlowe and company appeared on the docks. The prisoner was unconscious by then, still being dragged between Marlowe and Lopez, who were attempting to make the man appear drunk.

  Two anxious sailing men stood on the deck of the ship by the gangplank, ready to haul it up. One of them was rocking back and forth impatiently; the other kept his eyes on the long street leading to the docks.

  “Come on, then,” the impatient man yelled when the group drew closer.

  Lopez turned to the old man at whose house they had been guests. The man’s hood was pulled forward so far that his face could not be seen.

  “I fear that they will come for you,” Lopez said to the old man. “I pray that your son is safe.”

  “Nothing in this world is certain,” the bass voice rumbled.

  “What can we do to help?” Lopez asked.

  “Pray,” the old man said.

  “That I will,” Lopez vowed.

  Then the old man turned to Marlowe.

  “And you,” he said softly. “Would you pray for a Jew, Christopher Marlowe?”

  “God, of course I would. Do you mistake me for a Spaniard?” Marlowe scowled. “I’ve prayed for Dr. Lopez daily—in both Latin and English. I’d pray for you in your own language, if I knew it.”

  The old man nodded. “Then learn this word first, and let us speak it together: shalom.”

  “Shalom.” Marlowe nodded. “I know that one. It means peace.”

  “Yes,” the old man said. “It also means that something is complete: you’ve found your man, your work is done.”

  “It also means, if my education does not fail me,” Marlowe answered, “the absence of discord. That meaning seems, perhaps, best of all.”

  The old man turned to Lopez and said, softly, “You were right about him.”

  With that the old man and his family turned, moving, again, as one, and seemed to float across the docks and back into the town.

  “Come on!” the sailor at the top of the gangplank shouted again. “We’re away with this tide!”

  Marlowe and Lopez muscled their man up the plank and onto the deck in short order. The plank was drawn, the last lines cast off, and the Ascension lurched away from the dock as if it had been shoved toward the open ocean by some giant, unseen hand.

  The sudden jolt startled the prisoner into semiconsciousness.

  “Where am I?” he piped, slightly panicked.

  “It’s all right, my friend,” Marlowe assured him. “Walsingham sent us. You’re on an English ship with the Queen’s men. You’re safe and you’re going home.”

  The man raised his head, looked at Marlowe, and began to cry.

  “Home?”

  “That’s right,” Marlowe assured him. “Now, what do you need?”

  “Water, food, bath,” the prisoner managed to gasp.

  “Which first?” Lopez asked.

  “At the same time,” the man said, “if possible.”

  And then he collapsed again.

  “I’ll get him into a tub,” Marlowe volunteered, “if you can manage the food and drinking water.”

  “Done,” Lopez agreed. “His room is the first on the right down below.”

  The Ascension was a clean ship. The crew was all professional men, sailing men, and clearly better paid than most. They wore a sort of uniform dress: black boots, loose pants, blue shirts. Marlowe considered the crisp air of order and confidence and came to the conclusion that Mr. Cordal, the ship’s owner, was probably also in Walsingham’s employ. Good business and the Queen’s government were certainly affable bedfellows, but Marlowe was also suddenly wary of every man onboard.

  He all but carried the prisoner down the steps to the appointed room below. There was a large bed, a writing desk, a hooked rug, and an ornate brass tub already filled with steaming water. On a small table close to the bed there was a pitcher surrounded by several mugs.

  Marlowe eased the prisoner down onto the bed and then checked the pitcher. It was filled with fresh water and orange slices. He filled a mug, sat on the bed, roused the prisoner, and helped him to drink the mug dry.

  The prisoner nodded, gasping a little.

  “Food’s on the way,” Marlowe assured him.

  “I—I should tell you,” the man began, and then lapsed, once more, into unconsciousness.

  Marlowe laid him down and began to pull off the oversized boots. Next he wrestled with the tunic. The prisoner’s half-opened eyes displayed a degree of alarm that Marlowe didn’t quite understand.

  “It’s all right,” Marlowe said soothingly. “The bath’s drawn, we’ll just get you into it. Come on.”

  The prisoner’s eyes opened wider, and the voice squeaked, but didn’t seem to form proper words. At the same time, Marlowe dragged the prisoner’s foul undershirt off and stood back, prepared to help the prisoner up, out of the grimy trousers, and into the tub.

  He was not prepared, however, for what he saw next.

  The prisoner was, in fact, a woman.

  * * *

  At that moment in Valletta, in the lovely courtyard, the merchant Abraham Abulafia, descendent of the great Hebrew mystic of the same name, threw back his hood and sat down at the table next to his son, Mikha’el.

  “What now?” Mikha’el asked, picking a date from the tray on the table.

  “Now? We wait,” his father said.

  “Wait for the knights to realize that we helped set free their prized English prisoner, you mean. Why did we do this, father? Why did we help these English?”

  The old man sat back, feeling the setting sun on his face.

  “Rodrigo Lopez,” he told Mikha’el, as if it were the complete answer.

  “Your friendship with him has always troubled me,” the younger man said, shaking his head. “He’s a convert, a traitor to his faith.”

  The old man shook his head and smiled. “If I told you that I was a camel, would you believe me?”

  “What?”

  “Just saying the words, ‘I’m a Christian’ scarcely makes a man a convert. Lopez pretends, yes. But do you really imagine that Walsingham and the English Queen believe him? They know. They know a camel when they see one.”

  “But, if they know—” Mikha’el began.

  “They don’t care,” his father interrupted. />
  “Why?” It was a question with several meanings.

  “It doesn’t matter to the Queen because Dr. Lopez is, perhaps, the greatest healer in the world, and has twice saved her life. Walsingham doesn’t care because he sees Lopez as the perfect instrument: both spectacularly worthwhile and supremely expendable. But why does Lopez do it? That should be your question.”

  “Yes,” Mikha’el demanded, “why does he do it?”

  “He does it to be the Queen’s personal physician.” The old man’s eyes narrowed. “He will soon be the only man in the world who can hold a knife to the heart of England’s monarch.”

  Just as Mikha’el realized what his father was saying, a thin gray cloud passed overhead, and seemed to cut the sun in half.

  NINE

  AT SEA

  Marlowe stood speechless, unable to avert his eyes despite a desperate attempt to do so. The prisoner from Malta was a woman. There was clearly no denying that. There was also not the slightest hope of explaining it.

  Marlowe tried to speak, but found he had lost the faculty.

  When Lopez plunged through the cabin door, food in hand, the same malady instantly struck him.

  Barely able to drag herself from the bed, the young woman slowly made her way to the steaming tub.

  “After what I’ve been through,” she croaked, “I don’t mind being stared at, but this silence is making me uncomfortable. Is that my food?”

  Lopez nodded dumbly.

  The woman tore off the rest of her clothing and lowered herself into the tub, splashing water everywhere.

  “God’s pig-pissing kingdom,” the woman said, sighing and sinking down into the hot water. “Now. Food?”

  Lopez stood motionless. Out of the corner of his mouth he whispered, “Marlowe! What have you done?”

  “What do you mean what have I done?” Marlowe shot back.

  “I mean,” Lopez demanded with a fuller voice, “who is this woman and what have you done with the prisoner?”

  “That woman is the prisoner,” Marlowe answered, as if he were explaining some holy miracle.

  Lopez allowed his eyes to drift toward the tub. “No.”

  “I’m afraid he’s right,” the woman said languidly. “But I won’t make it back to England if I don’t eat something soon.”

  Marlowe took two steps, grabbed the wooden bowl of food from Lopez, and strode toward the tub. The woman rose slightly out of the water and stretched out a long pale arm.

  “What do we have?” She grabbed the bowl and sat back into the water. “Beef, biscuit, lentils—is that honey?”

  “It is,” Lopez confirmed hesitantly. “You’re—how did you—who are you?”

  As if she hadn’t heard Lopez, the young woman attacked her food, apparently attempting to put the entire contents of the bowl into her mouth in one gulp. Crumbs and bits of meat fell into the water, but she retrieved them and popped them into her mouth as well. The bowl was empty in seconds.

  “More,” she gasped, her mouth still full.

  She held out the bowl, eyes closed.

  Marlowe only hesitated for a second before taking it from her and returning to Lopez.

  “You heard her,” he told the doctor. “More.”

  “I—yes—well.” And with that, Lopez was off.

  Marlowe turned about.

  “I believe we have a few things to discuss,” Marlowe said, straining to remain calm, sitting down on the bed.

  “I’m really not going to talk about anything until we’re back on English soil,” she answered. “I don’t know who you are.”

  “I’m the man who pulled you out of that stinking hole in Malta,” Marlowe responded softly. “I’m the man who killed someone to save your life. I’m the man whom Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queen’s spymaster, sent to rescue you.”

  She turned to look at him. “I don’t remember much about the last few days.”

  “Will you tell me your name?”

  “Will you tell me yours?” she countered.

  “I am Christopher Marlowe,” he answered immediately.

  “You’re Kit Marlowe?”

  “What? Kit? Why would you call me that? My name is Christopher. And why do you say it as if you’ve heard the name before?”

  “Because I have,” she answered simply, sinking low into the water.

  “No. But, I mean—Oh, God! It just occurred to me: we’ve rescued the wrong man!”

  “What?” she asked languidly.

  “I pulled the wrong person out of that prison!” His voice sounded hollow.

  The woman remained in a state of water-borne well-being. “Not from my point of view. And you should probably remember that I knew the countersign.”

  “That’s right. But how did you know it? Walsingham’s countersign?”

  “House martin? Because that’s what he told me to say. It makes sense, too. You can see how he would get from Throckmorton to house martin.”

  “What?” Marlowe swallowed.

  “For one thing, they sound alike. But I refer to the legend that a house martin will capture a house sparrow by closing the entrance of the nest. And house martins will gather en masse to kill a sparrow. And the sparrow, as you surely know, was, to the Greeks, Aphrodite’s kindred. Aphrodite is the queen of love, is she not?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Throckmorton’s plot is an attempt to trap our Queen in her own nest, and amass an army to kill her. I have the details of his plan. If I can manage to return to England alive, the Queen will be saved.”

  She glanced his way. Marlowe held his breath.

  “Set your mind to rest,” she continued persuasively, if somewhat giddily. “You have plucked the proper posy.”

  “This is no time for easy alliteration,” Marlowe warned her. “And how do you know to call me Kit?”

  “It’s a nickname your father gave you when you were little,” she said softly. “It was told to me so that you would believe what I say.”

  “Told to you by whom?” Marlowe stammered.

  “Let me revive myself,” she sighed, “and I will tell you everything. But rest assured that you have done as you were told to do. You have rescued Her Majesty’s spy.”

  With that she slipped further into the water until her head was entirely under.

  Lopez chose that moment to return with another bowl of food. He was breathing heavily. He’d run.

  After taking the briefest of moments to survey the room, holding out the bowl in his left hand, Lopez glared at Marlowe.

  “Now what have you done with her?” he demanded, setting the bowl on the bed. “Where is she?”

  “Under the water,” Marlowe whispered.

  “What a blunder!”

  “No, we—apparently we’ve done exactly as we were told.” Marlowe stepped closer to Lopez. “She knew the countersign. She says she has Walsingham’s information, enough to hang Throckmorton and save the Queen.”

  “But—” Lopez squeezed his eyes shut. “She’s a woman. Not even a woman. A girl.”

  Marlowe gazed at the tub. “She’s a girl who withstood the tortures of the Inquisition and the hell of that prison. She may be the bravest person I have ever met.”

  At that her head popped up from the surface of the steaming water and she shouted, “God in Heaven, is there anything better in life than a hot bath?”

  Lopez nodded. “So. Brave, then, but still a girl.”

  Marlowe could only stare at her profile.

  “I wouldn’t stay in that water any longer,” Lopez called out. “Bathing is very unhealthy.”

  “Right,” she said, not looking at them, “I’m going to get out of the tub now and eat more, and drink more, so I hope that there are clothes for me somewhere.”

  Marlowe took a step in her direction.

  “Clothes for a man,” he said. “The informal uniform of the crew, a pair of black boots, these loose-fitting pants, and a blue shirt. Laid out on the bed, beside your next bowl of food.”<
br />
  “I feel it would be better for all concerned if everyone, most especially the crew, were to continue thinking of me as a man,” she said firmly. “Agreed?”

  “Most assuredly,” Lopez assented quickly.

  “Then, gentlemen, if you would avert your eyes for but a moment, I shall quickly repair to my former identity: a frail boy named Richard.”

  Lopez instantly turned his back. Marlowe only lowered his eyes.

  The spy slowly climbed out of the tub. Marlowe did his best not to look, but his best proved none too good. While she turned to dress, Marlowe could not help but observe that this spy might, like the sparrow, also be kin to Aphrodite.

  When she was dressed, her hair tied up in a kerchief, her body concealed by ill-fitting clothing, she cleared her throat.

  “Quickly now,” she admonished. “We have much to discuss. I want to know what ship I’m on, how you got me out, what day and month it is—so many things.”

  She sat on the bed, scooped up the bowl, and began, once more, to eat like a sailor.

  Lopez and Marlowe stood as her brief tale unfolded through mouthfuls of food.

  Disguised as Richard, the sickly son of a lower courtier, she gained an invitation to the Throckmorton country estate under a pretense of health. London’s continuing troubles with plague enjoined many a wealthier citizen to retreat to the countryside.

  Once there, “Richard” charmed the lady of the house, and the servants, sufficiently to be privy to all gossip. The gossip led to discoveries, discoveries led to schemes. Richard was returning to London with a head full of information when someone alerted Throckmorton: Richard was a spy.

  Alone on horseback and bound for London, Richard was taken by highwaymen, drugged, shipped, and fed to the Catholic forces on Malta, the Pope’s most secure prison stronghold.

  “But,” an astonished Lopez gasped, “how did you survive?”

  She was lying back on the bed, the empty bowl resting on her belly.

  “The character I played was devised by my superiors just so,” she answered. “Already sickly, pale, and a bit dull-witted, Richard frequently babbled, passed out, pissed himself, cried, and generally acquiesced to any question long before any severe torture was proffered. I was lucky in that my inquisitor was only after information, not entertainment, as so many of those pigs are. When it became obvious to him that Richard would tell all if it were but suggested that he might be slapped, very little else was done to persuade him to give out his secrets.”