“But you didn’t actually give out your secrets,” Marlowe said.
“That, also, was the brilliance of my tutors,” she admitted. “I had memorized an entire script of parallel information, some of it even true, though harmless, that I could spout under duress. It all sounded entirely plausible, and, when bits of it were verified, the inquisitor was convinced that he was teasing out the truth. But lack of food and water, and the general hellish conditions of the prison, were beginning to take a toll. If you had been delayed by two weeks, I would have been dead.”
With that she sat up, placed the bowl on the floor, and looked both men up and down.
“Yes,” she went on, speaking directly to Marlowe, “I can see why you were sent on this foolhardy mission.”
“Why would you know the reason I was sent on this mission?” Marlowe snapped.
“But”—she turned her attention to the other man—“are you not Dr. Lopez?”
Lopez did his best not to register surprise. “How on earth would you know that? Who are you?”
“Will you tell us your name, at least?” Marlowe asked, only a little more gently.
She smiled.
“You’ll know soon enough, so I may as well tell you.”
She stood and held out her hand.
“Gentlemen, I am Frances Walsingham, only daughter of Sir Francis, lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth, and her finest spy. But please, for the time being, call me Richard. Oh, and by the by, thank you both for saving my life.”
TEN
Before Marlowe or Lopez could even comprehend what they’d just been told, let alone respond, the door to the cabin burst open and the captain of the vessel filled the doorframe.
He was a large man, all in blue. Even his beard had a slightly azure tint. His eyes were ablaze and there was a pistol in his right hand.
“Which one of you is Christopher Marlowe?” he boomed.
Before Marlowe could answer, Lopez stepped quickly to the captain, looked up at him, and murmured calmly, “Why do you ask?”
“I’ve just been given to understand,” the captain seethed, “that this Marlowe is wanted for murder! I’ll have no such man on my ship when we’re about the Queen’s business.”
Marlowe reached out and took Lopez by the elbow, locking eyes with the captain.
“I am that man,” he said, “but I am no murderer. I have been falsely accused. The doctor here is my witness, and his testimony is unimpeachable, as is his character. As soon as we’re back in London, he’ll testify and that will be an end to it. Also, Captain, I have been about the Queen’s business saving this young man, who is Lord Walsingham’s prize possession at the moment. I have done more of the Queen’s work in the past seven days than you have in a lifetime as a ferry boatman. So use that pistol or put it away, but I’ll not desert this post.”
“I should point out that if you decide to use the pistol,” Lopez added, “it will, most assuredly, be the last thing you do in this life.”
To make his point, Lopez glanced down at the dagger in his hand. It was lodged against the captain’s gut.
The captain only hesitated for an instant, but it was enough for Marlowe.
“Now,” Marlowe said reasonably, “how is it that you’ve come into this sordid and completely false bit of information about me?”
“What do you mean?” the captain asked, clearly muddled.
“Seeing how you feel, you wouldn’t have let me on board if you’d known this information before we set sail,” Marlowe reasoned, “so I must assume that someone onboard has just told you about me. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Someone is using this ridiculous murder accusation,” Marlowe went on, “to disrupt my duties for the Queen.”
“Please lower your pistol, Captain,” Sir Walsingham’s daughter entreated in a deliberately low voice. “It’s a bumpy sea, and I fear an accident.”
Marlowe could not prevent a brief smile.
The captain, as if he had just remembered that there was a gun in his hand, lowered the offending weapon.
“Who told you?” Lopez insisted. “Who gave you this information?”
“New crewman,” the captain grunted. “Picked him up in Malta. Just in from Lisbon, he said. A Basque. I should have thought about this.”
“A Basque?” Marlowe snapped.
“Why did you take on a new crewman,” Lopez asked, “knowing that this was a secret mission?”
“Lost three on the voyage here,” the captain answered gravely. “Had a run-in with a warship. Brief, but it cost three lives and all the spare timber we had aboard.”
“But this mission—” Lopez began.
“Do you know anything about the Basque people?” the captain growled. “They hate the Spanish. They hate the Portuguese. They hate the French. They’ve been living in those mountains for thousands of years, speaking their own language, and they don’t ever complain. I calls that a perfect crewman: no affiliation, don’t talk, and this one’s a great marksman.”
Lopez and Marlowe looked at each other.
“Argi,” they said at the same time.
“Where is he now?” Lopez demanded. “We have to speak with him.”
“On deck.”
Marlowe lowered his head. “Doctor, would you please stay with our guest? I’m going to speak to my accuser.”
The captain hesitated, but after a moment stepped aside. Marlowe stormed out.
Topside, in the day’s final light, the sea was rough. The men secured everything on deck, and running lamps were lit. Marlowe caught sight of Argi tying a barrel to the rail, intent on his work. Marlowe moved silently and unnoticed, knife out. Once he reached the man’s side, Marlowe took Argi by the hair and held the point of his blade just under the shorter man’s jaw.
“Hello, Argi,” he said pleasantly.
“I didn’t expect you so quickly,” Argi said calmly.
“I’d imagine not.”
“But I’m glad you got my message,” Argi went on. “We’ve got to get off this ship.”
“Your message.”
“Dead earnest, my friend,” Argi assured him. “Get the other two up here any way you can, and we’re away. I have a longboat ready.”
“Again? Why are you always so interested in getting me off the water?”
“I heard that you hated the water,” Argi suggested.
“We’re not going anywhere with you.”
Marlowe cast his gaze about the deck. Several other crew members had already taken notice of his knife; more were certain to follow.
Argi also saw that the deckhands were about to become a problem. He broke free from Marlowe’s grasp, spitting in what appeared to be terror rather than rage, and shouted, “Yes! I stole your money! Here!”
With that he took out several coins and tossed them onto the deck.
“What the hell?” one of the older men said, coming toward them both. His uniform was a bit more kempt than most, and he had the air of someone in command.
“When he was helping us with the prisoner downstairs,” Marlowe snapped, “this man stole money from my pocket.”
“True?” the older man asked coldly.
Argi nodded.
“I’ll fetch the captain,” the man said.
“He’s down in the cabin,” Marlowe grumbled. “I’ll take this man to him myself.”
Before the older man could respond, Marlowe took Argi by the arm and dragged him below.
Once down the stairs, Marlowe let go and whispered, “What in God’s name are you doing?”
“I’m trying to get you off this bilge scow,” Argi said urgently. “You’re wanted for murder!”
“I know,” Marlowe answered, more amused than concerned. “I’m really going to have to do something about that. But at the moment I have more important matters.”
“You don’t realize that your ‘more important matters’ have everything to do with your murder.”
“My murder?”
“The one you did. The man you killed.”
“I didn’t kill anybody, Christ.” Marlowe rolled his head, snapping bones in his neck.
Without warning the captain of the Ascension swept into the corridor.
“Now we’ll sort this out, by God!” he boomed.
Lopez and Richard appeared, flanking the captain.
“It’s true,” Argi railed immediately. “This man, this Christopher Marlowe, he killed a fellow student in Cambridge.”
“No—” Marlowe began.
“He tried to hide it,” Argi went on, “but they found the body in Marlowe’s room, stuffed into a mattress!”
“Stuffed into a—what manner of idiot would I have to be to hide a dead body in my own room?” Marlowe asked of no one in particular.
“Ask the crew.” Argi lowered his voice. “Some of them have heard this too! Or send out one of your birds. You know what I mean.”
The captain’s scowl was a mask of rage and indecision.
“Like Cyrus in Persia,” Argi went on, winking.
“Do you mean that there are messenger birds on board this ship?” Lopez asked slowly.
The captain took a moment to decide exactly how he wanted to answer, and then said, grudgingly, “Only one left.”
“You sent out one to tell Walsingham that we had rescued the prisoner,” Marlowe assumed.
That seemed to surprise the captain. “How did you know?”
“How did I—Lopez, does everyone think that I’m feebleminded?”
“Not everyone, surely.” Lopez glared at the captain.
“The solution seems simple,” Richard suggested. “Send out your last bird. Find out if my rescuer is, indeed, a monster.”
“It’s the only way, really,” Argi confirmed.
“Blast!” the captain bellowed.
Without further ado, he shoved Marlowe to one side, Argi to the other, and lumbered up the stairs, cursing.
“What are you doing on this ship?” Lopez asked Argi. “And why are you trying to get Marlowe thrown off it?”
“I was on my way back to my own ship, to meet with Captain de Ferro, when I heard the news.” He suddenly looked around. “Maybe we should go into the cabin.”
Without waiting for agreement, Argi slipped into the small room. The others, unable to determine any other course of action, followed him.
Once inside, his voice lowered even more than it had been, Argi went on.
“There is a warrant for your arrest,” he said to Marlowe, “and more than usual effort is being employed to secure your capture. We believe that it is an effort to destroy this rescue mission; prevent you from getting your man back to London.”
Marlowe tried his best to see Argi in a new light. The intimation that he was a part of some larger scheme, one of which Marlowe was unaware, was startling.
“You said, ‘We believe,’” Marlowe exhaled slowly.
“Do you think you’re the only one in Walsingham’s employ?”
Marlowe looked around. “I’m beginning to feel that I was, until a few days ago, the only one who wasn’t.”
“There is great concern that the warrant will result in your capture and the detention of our man here, the prisoner. And he is vital. Do you understand that?”
“I understand that better than you do,” Marlowe said quickly, “but do you mean to say that if I’m to be arrested, he might also be detained?”
“Yes. The doctor, of course, won’t be held long, but you and this man, God knows what could happen to you.”
After a moment of consideration, Lopez nodded.
“There’s a point in this,” he said softly.
“No.” Marlowe stepped back in the crowded room. “I have no confidence in this whatsoever. How are we to know that this isn’t some ploy from the Pope’s men? Take us off this ship, sent by Walsingham himself, and we’re lost.”
“If you stay on this ship,” Argi said firmly, “you will be arrested the moment we land in England. There are men waiting. There will be no discussion. You three will be taken. What do you think was in the bird-message that this captain sent?”
“On the one hand,” Richard mumbled, “we stay on the ship, we arrive in England, we’re arrested, I’m killed before I can relate my information.”
“Yes,” Marlowe agreed, “because the men waiting to arrest me in London are most certainly not Walsingham’s.”
“On the other hand,” Richard went on, “we get off the ship, it’s a trap, probably from the Pope’s men, and I’m killed before I can relate my information.”
“And impossible to be certain which of your observations is true,” Lopez observed solemnly.
“Hang on a moment,” Marlowe said slowly.
He took three steps backward, as far as he could until the corner of the cabin stopped him. His eyes watched some vision of the mind, but they darted as if the vision were alive.
“If this were a play,” he began, nearly to himself, “I would know what to do.”
“What?” Lopez moaned incredulously. “Stop that immediately! This is no time for—this isn’t a play, it’s life and death!”
Marlowe shook his head. “No, Doctor. Theatre is the truest metaphor of life we human beings have yet invented. Better: this life is a play, you understand?”
“No, Marlowe!” Lopez exploded. “This isn’t theatre!”
“Yes, it is. It has an author who has devised a plot, and characters, and dialogue—all to a purpose. And it’s simple. What would I do if I ran up against a dilemma like this in writing a scene? How would I get the characters out of the quandary, in this case, off the boat? I only need to decide the author of this particular story, and I’ll know what to do.”
Argi turned to Lopez. “Is it possible that he has lost his mind?”
“Entirely,” Lopez snapped.
But Richard seemed more willing to consider Marlowe’s perspective.
“Walsingham knew what to do,” Richard said, “as soon as he found out that Throckmorton was the traitor, an author of the plot against our Queen.”
“Exactly.” Marlowe nodded once.
“I’m not certain I understand what’s being said here,” Argi confessed quietly.
“Are you a character by Walsingham,” Marlowe asked pleasantly, “or were you created by the Pope?”
Before Argi answered, Richard began to pace the cabin, speaking quickly. “While you were on deck just now, Lopez told me that this man, this Basque, was a member of the crew that brought you part of the way to Malta.”
“And we were set off the ship because a Spanish war vessel was after us,” Marlowe said, falling into Richard’s rhythm. “But that was suspicious to me at the time.”
“However,” Lopez said, wading into the rapid fire, “he smuggled us through Spain, no mean feat, almost single-handedly.”
“He could have killed us at any time,” Marlowe said.
“But you hadn’t yet retrieved your prisoner,” Richard answered. “He had to wait until you’d accomplished your task.”
“Why?” Marlowe fired. “If the point was to keep you from giving Walsingham your information, why risk having you rescued and then trying to kill you? Why not just leave you in prison and let you be taken care of there, in Malta?”
“Which is nearly what happened,” Richard agreed.
“Which means that Argi wanted us to succeed in rescuing you,” Marlowe went on. “He was instructed to help us do it.”
“I was!” Argi insisted.
“If Argi were a Catholic agent,” Marlowe concluded, “he would have killed us in Spain, or turned us in to Catholic authorities there. That would have been easy. And either way we’d be dead now.”
“And when I heard of the danger for you, as I was making my way back to my own ship,” Argi interrupted vehemently, “I got to this boat, got on, and now I’m trying to save your lives! Again!”
Marlowe nodded. Richard stopped pacing. Lopez smiled.
“I believe you,” Marlo
we said simply. “Let’s get off this rotten log.”
Without another word, Marlowe headed for the door.
“I don’t know what just happened,” Argi said a little helplessly.
“We’re leaving this ship,” Richard said.
“Ah.” Argi turned at once. “Good. This is good.”
Seconds later the odd quartet appeared on deck only to be confronted by the captain of the Ascension and several of his more formidable men.
“Where do you think you’re going?” the captain demanded.
“You can’t be serious,” Marlowe railed. “Not five minutes ago you told me to get off your ship. That’s what I’m doing.”
“No,” the captain grunted. “The Basque was right. I sent out a pigeon. We’ll wait for an answer.”
“You’ve got to make up your mind, Captain,” Marlowe said, deliberately setting his voice at an irritating pitch. “Do you want me on or off? This indecision ill befits a captain.”
The captain was at a momentary loss for a response.
“Let’s go,” Marlowe said to his compatriots.
“Wait. Wait.” The captain appeared to be using every bit of his brain power to reason out a proper handling of the situation. “You can go. You’re the wanted man, the murderer. The rest? They stay. Especially the prisoner. Sir Francis has been most specific on that account.”
“I’m not staying on this ship without my chief protector,” Richard said firmly.
“Oh, yes, you are.”
“And I’m not leaving without Richard,” Marlowe added.
The captain turned to his left and spoke to a very large man. “Throw the man in black over the side, Albert. Put the rest back down in the cabin.”
Albert was nearly seven feet tall, bursting from his uniform, eyes like an insensate bull. When he received the captain’s order, he groaned with what sounded like pleasure.
But before he could move an inch, Marlowe had drawn his dagger and rapier.
Lopez took two steps backward and drew out his rapier. He was smiling in a way that could freeze blood.
A Prisoner in Malta Page 9
