A Prisoner in Malta

by Phillip DePoy

  Zigor sighed. “We find him—como uma rosa no jardim.”

  “Like a rose in the garden?” Marlowe snapped. “Where?”

  “A Igreja.”

  “The church. St. Benet’s, do you mean?” Marlowe asked.

  Zigor nodded.

  “That’s what Frizer said,” Frances noted.

  “Yes,” Zigor went on. “Ingram too. We find him—Pygott. Already dead.”

  “You’re claiming that you didn’t kill him?” Marlowe pressed.

  “Ouve-me,” he insisted, “I follow Ingram. We go to the church to steal.”

  “Wait just a moment,” Marlowe said. “You mean you went to St. Benet’s to steal something that you wanted another student to steal? The man you attacked, along with Lopez, on the road to London a month ago?”

  “Yes. A student who is called Marlowe. But he is not willing to do the work. So, we try to kill him. That also did not go well. So Ingram makes another plan: get this Pygott to steal. Ingram has a plan to meet Pygott at the church.”

  “But you found Pygott’s body in the garden. This is what you want us to believe.”

  “Yes. Also: Pygott, he already have the—it’s a Bible. We find it on his body.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.” Marlowe shook his head emphatically. “It was supposed to be something that would incriminate a man named John Marlowe, the student’s father. Why would Pygott care about that?”

  Zigor started to speak, then gave up.

  “Desculpa. You talk too fast. I cannot understand. I need Ingram to tell you.”

  “That’s convenient,” Tin muttered suspiciously.

  “But I must to go,” Zigor concluded, looking around. “Existem inimigos à minha procura por todo o lado.”

  “‘Enemies looking for you everywhere?’” Marlowe snorted. “You have your share of enemies standing before you.”

  “You? No,” he disagreed. “No enemy. For me? Is business. Católico, Protestantes, Judeu—it’s matter not to me.”

  “But you are in the employ of the Catholic Church,” Frances pressed.

  “But, like Ingram,” he admitted, “only for the money.”

  “What about the item you say you found on Pygott?” Tin wanted to know.

  “Ingram.”

  “You did help Frizer to carry the dead boy’s body to a room upstairs here at the Pickerel, is that correct?” Frances confirmed.

  But before Zigor could answer, a grating voice from just inside the doorway startled them all.

  “What the hell are you ruffians about out here, then?” Pinch growled, stepping out of the shadows with his large wooden club in one hand and a butcher knife in the other.

  Everyone turned his way.

  “This is Ingram Frizer’s friend,” Marlowe said quickly. “We were just telling him what happened here.”

  “Telling him to clear out,” Frances added.

  “Oh.” Pinch nodded. “Well, that’s done then.”

  Marlowe turned back around to see that it was true.

  Zigor was gone.

  “Incidentally, Mr. Greene,” Pinch went on, “there was gentlemen of the constabulary in your room earlier today, when you was out. They say that this Marley, the murderer, is suspected of being back in Cambridge, and might approach the digs what’s rented to you. So watch out for yourself. Of course, they’re watching the place now, these beadles, so you’re not alone. Thought you should know.”

  And away he lumbered.

  “Christ!” Marlowe whispered. “Now the law is watching my room!”

  “Steady, Mr. Greene,” Frances answered. “They’re only trying to help.”

  Marlowe shook his head and stepped toward the door to the bar.

  Back inside, at their table once more, the odd trio sat in silence, trying to make sense of everything.

  Marlowe’s mind raged. Every thought that rose up was met with a warring opposite. Lopez was gone, and that caused Marlowe pain, but Lopez had been watching him, observing him. It was even possible that Lopez had purchased the murder of Pygott. Why would he do it? To test Marlowe? Or worse: to get Marlowe out of the way? Every thought of Lopez as a friend and hero was matched by a suspicion of Lopez as a spy and a traitor.

  Then there was the notion that the law was watching his room. It would only be a matter of time before someone discovered that the real Robert Greene was in his grotesque digs in London, suffering illness and regret, working on his newest theatre piece.

  He ended his tormented introspection by staring at Tin’s profile. She was an odd rival, enamored with Frances as much as he was.

  Even more apparent was the cool way Frances held herself: assured, capable—complete. Her father had trained her well. She needed no one. Marlowe feared that Tin’s pronouncement was accurate: he and Tin were doomed to love someone who would not love them in return.

  Half an hour and three more ales later, decisions were made.

  First, Ingram was not to be trusted. Second, Zigor had to be found. Third, Frances and Tin were to return to Coughton.

  That was a risk, but Frances would go as herself this time, a lady-in-waiting to the Queen. Even if Throckmorton was certain of her dual identity as Richard, he would hardly be so bold as to threaten Lord Walsingham’s daughter. Frances would say that she had need to speak with her acquaintance Elizabeth Throckmorton about some fabricated, slight matters of court. Tin would resume her place as her father’s daughter. Their goal would be to discover further details about the plan to murder the Queen in her own chambers; even, if possible, to uncover the identity of the Queen’s killer.

  Marlowe would remain in Cambridge. The Pope’s assassin close at hand and the local law out to arrest him, it was clear that his freedom, and his life, depended on finding Pygott’s killer.

  EIGHTEEN

  The streets of Cambridge looked foreign to Marlowe in the dark of the moon. Every shadow was a lie, every sound a threat. Ominous figures moved just at the edge of his sight. Men were after him, for reward or for the law. The riverside shambles that passed for homes all seemed animated with menace, and nothing could completely eradicate the premonition that he would die that night.

  What surprised him was how comforting he found the prospect of death. Dying was only a chance to sleep, and he was mortally tired. His discomfort lay more in the dread of what might happen if he were arrested or killed before he could succeed in his task. Harm could come to Frances. The Queen might be killed. The country would be overtaken by Spain. And he would be remembered as a murderer, not a poet.

  So staying alive, finding Zigor, and forcing him to admit that he murdered Pygott was, for the moment, the only task in the world.

  Thanks to Pinch, whose hulking manner and slack-jawed mien belied a keen mind and a great wealth of information, Marlowe had learned that an enclave of Basque sailors and criminals infested an encampment somewhere in the Coe Fen south of the city.

  As he drew nearer the fen, the unmistakable smell of marmitako, the Basque fish stew with potatoes, onions, tomatoes, and peppers, filled the air. In the distance he could hear the faint singing of bertsos, Basque improvised melodies. In short, Pinch’s information was accurate.

  Marlowe had already doffed his cumbersome cassock in favor of the sleeker black pants and tunic that had been hidden underneath. The ginger beard was still in place, and still just as irritating.

  He walked along the edges of the path, keeping clear of sucking mud, noisy stones, and, as was sometimes the case in these more unsavory environs, small steel traps.

  As he drew closer to the singing, he could see several open fires. Men were gathered around them, mostly eating, some sleeping. The seated singer was extemporizing with equal fervor and concentration, and the men closest to him were rapt, oblivious to anything else.

  How to proceed? Marlowe wondered.

  Stealth seemed the most sensible bet, but to what end? He could approach the men silently, but he would have to confront Zigor at some point, and any furtive behavior
would be seen as a threat by the rest of the men. Better to be bold.

  Just as he made that decision, he recognized the singer in the flickering firelight. His pulse quickened. His blood heated and made his face red. His hands began to shake ever so slightly.

  He took a deep breath and then several quick, loud strides toward the encampment. His voice booming a deliberately joyous greeting.

  “Argi! You’re in England!”

  Argi stopped singing, leapt to his feet, a dagger in his hand.

  The rest of the men turned toward Marlowe. Most of them were armed as well. One of them was Zigor, who tried to hide his face in the shadows.

  Argi twisted his neck several times, squinting, trying to recognize the man coming toward him.

  Marlowe rushed to Argi’s side, brushed the knife to one side, and embraced the smaller man.

  Argi was momentarily taken aback, until he felt the point of a blade at his spine.

  “If you move or cry out an alarm, you’re dead,” Marlowe whispered in his ear.

  “So are you,” Argi answered. “These men will kill you.”

  “The difference is,” Marlowe snapped fervently, “I don’t care, but you do. A man who sings the way you just did? He loves life.”

  Argi recognized something in that voice.

  “Marlowe?” Argi exhaled. “Is it you underneath this ridiculous beard?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I came here for Zigor.” It was only half the truth.

  There was a moment of stillness, followed by great mock joy on Argi’s part.

  “My friend!” he bellowed.

  The men around the fire relaxed; most of the weapons were put away. Marlowe stood back from Argi and beamed.

  “Let me look at you,” he said.

  As he did, he saw Zigor out of the corner of his eye. He wheeled around.

  “And Zigor!” he shouted. “I thought I might find you here.”

  Zigor stood, uncertain of what was happening.

  “One word from me,” Argi warned softly, “and these men will kill you and cook you for stew.”

  Marlowe grinned, turned madly about to address all those men.

  “Men of the Pyrenees,” he began, “you whose ancestors protected your homeland from Visigoths of Iberia and Muslims to the south, Franks from the advancing north, and Satan from hell itself, you would know my struggle! You whose forefathers survived the bloody partisan War of the Bands and resisted the rule of any tyrant, you must hear me. I come to you now because my home is threatened by those same forces that have plagued your families for a thousand years. I need your help. You must come to my aid!”

  His impassioned speech was met with stunned silence.

  Argi leaned close to Marlowe’s ear.

  “They told me you like to write plays,” he whispered enthusiastically. “I think you would be very good at it.”

  Marlowe nodded, keeping his eyes on the audience.

  “I thought it was worth a try.” He shrugged. “They don’t seem particularly impressed.”

  “Well,” Argi allowed, “it would have had great success if any of these men spoke English.”

  “They don’t speak English?”

  “Not a one of them,” Argi grunted. “Just Zigor and me. That’s all.”

  “But it was good speech,” Zigor said.

  Marlowe turned his attention to Zigor alone. “You know why I’m here.”

  “No.” Zigor seemed completely at sea.

  “Pygott,” Marlowe snapped.

  “What?” Zigor squinted.

  “Tu não sabes?” Argi said to Zigor. “Este é o homem—”

  “Say no more,” Marlowe interrupted. “Not here, and not in Portuguese. I would prefer that the rest of these men did not know my name, or my predicament.”

  “I know who you are now,” Zigor finally understood. “I see that you are not this Greene.”

  “We should take a walk,” Argi said.

  Without another word, Argi headed out of the circle of men. Marlowe and Zigor followed.

  Back on the path that skirted the fen, away from the fires, Marlowe once again found it difficult to see anything but vague shapes in the darkness.

  After a few moments of silence, when they were far enough from the camp, Argi spoke up.

  “It really was a good speech,” he said. “Of course, it would have been much more effective in Portuguese. How do you know so much about my people?”

  “You killed my friend, Rodrigo Lopez,” Marlowe rasped.

  Darkness prevented Marlowe from seeing what Zigor did, but the sound of a pistol cocking was unmistakable. In the next heartbeat, the point of Marlowe’s dagger was pressed into the back of Argi’s neck, just below the skull.

  “If you don’t throw your pistol into the water,” Marlowe said to Zigor, “I’ll kill Argi now, instead of asking him why he murdered Dr. Lopez.”

  “My friend, my friend,” Argi gasped quickly. “What are you saying? I did not kill Lopez!”

  “You may not have done it alone,” Marlowe snapped bitterly, “no single man could have. Captain de Ferro was a part of it, I’m certain of that.”

  “No,” Argi pleaded, “you have it wrong.”

  Marlowe heard Zigor’s shuffling steps move to his left side. The man’s leather cape made a distinctive sound.

  Marlowe countered, keeping Argi’s body between himself and the shadow form.

  “Shoot if you want to,” Marlowe warned, “but you’ll just be killing your cousin, here.”

  Argi stopped struggling a little, and Zigor stood completely still.

  “How did you know we are cousins?” Argi asked.

  “I know everything.”

  A guess, a bluff, a brag—Marlowe acknowledged these as the best tools of any good actor, and every great spy.

  “So then why is it that you don’t know about Lopez?” Argi asked, almost argumentatively.

  Unfortunately, Marlowe spoke again before he thought.

  “What about him?”

  “Ah, there, you see.” Argi’s voice was genial. “You do not know everything. Let us talk, yes?”

  Marlowe let Argi go. A second later he heard the sound of the pistol uncocking.

  “Let’s walk this way, toward town,” Marlowe suggested, heading toward the outer streets of Cambridge, and torchlight. “I want to see your faces.”

  The cousins exchanged a few words in a language that Marlowe did not understand.

  “What is that?” he asked. “What are you saying?”

  “Oh,” Zigor answered, “we are trying to say if we kill you or no.”

  “I see.” Marlowe took a few more steps. “What’s the decision?”

  “For the moment,” Zigor said calmly, “we talk.”

  Only a few minutes later they were near a small dock where lamps were lit. No one seemed to be there at the moment, but the lamps meant someone would be returning soon.

  The trio stood in the street, near enough to see one another, far enough away to avoid being too well seen by others.

  Softly, and in English that was occasionally impossible to follow, Zigor related a brief portion of his story.

  “In July of last year,” Zigor began, his English strangely improved, “I am fighting with my cousin, Argi, in the Battle of Ponta Delgada.”

  “This is to keep Portugal out of the Spanish Empire, you understand,” Argi added.

  “We sailed on an English mercenary galleon captained by de Ferro,” Zigor went on. “In the ocean near the Azores, off São Miguel Island, we were severely defeated; taken prisoner by Spanish forces.”

  “I manage to escape with Captain de Ferro,” Argi said solemnly, “but Zigor is not so lucky.”

  “They take me to Spain.” Zigor looked about suspiciously, making certain he was not being overheard. “The Inquisition, they make me their spy.”

  “Zigor is a well-known assassin,” Argi interjected, a strange pride in his voice.

/>   “I am to go to England, meet Ingram Frizer, a Catholic spy, and enlist him in the cause: to rid England of a Protestant Queen.”

  “Zigor had to agree,” Argi insisted. “The pay was good and the alternative was death.”

  “I make my way to Cambridge and meet Frizer at the Pickerel Inn, as they tell me to do. He has found two other men to help. One is a brute whose skull is thicker than armor; the other is an excellent man with a knife.”

  “Both local,” Argi added.

  “But what was your assignment, you and Frizer?” Marlowe asked, certain he did not believe Zigor’s story.

  “A Bible,” he answered. “An illegal book, hidden in St. Benet’s Church. I don’t know why it’s important. Frizer says that strangers and foreigners breaking into a church would be suspected. So we find a student at the college to get it.”

  “And Frizer picked me.” Marlowe took in a deep breath. “He suspected that my father might be amenable to the Catholic cause, and he had no idea that I would soon be working for—”

  Marlowe stopped short of saying Walsingham’s name, though he was certain that Argi knew it.

  “One of the others, the knife man Frizer hired, he insist that we should not let you go, so we set out to kill you, but that was the day Lopez came to visit. No one wants to fight that man in an open yard. So. We follow the carriage and attack it. But Lopez, he kill the thick-skull, Marlowe stab Frizer and then throw a knife at me.”

  Zigor pulled back his sleeve, revealing a significant wound. Marlowe smiled.

  “Are we ever going to get to Walter Pygott?” Marlowe asked.

  “Oh. Yes. I know that Pygott is the one who brings the Bible to the church in the first place,” Zigor went on, “so we go back to Cambridge and get him.”

  “How did you know he was the one who delivered it?” Marlowe asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Zigor said quickly, “but when we find him, he says that he delivered the Bible to someone in the church. Frizer told Pygott that he was to go back into the church; get them back.”

  “You realize that most of this doesn’t make sense,” Marlowe objected. “Why deliver something to the church just to steal it back?”

  “Because someone in the church has hide this Bible,” Zigor explained. “And will not give them to anyone.”