A Prisoner in Malta

by Phillip DePoy

THIRTY-ONE

  Lopez hurried down the corridor toward the smell of baking bread.

  “You were lucky,” he said softly to Marlowe.

  “In what regard?” Marlowe asked, distracted by the prospect of food.

  “A button is a very tiny thing upon which to hang a murder,” Lopez told him.

  Marlowe took a moment to examine the side of Lopez’s face. The man looked ten years older than the last time Marlowe had seen him. And there was a barely healed cut across his jaw, the kind a dagger would make.

  “Well,” Marlowe allowed, “the possibility of Tin’s being the killer had been building in my mind for some time. First, I systematically eliminated all other suspects.”

  “By which you mean you guessed incorrectly several times.”

  “Yes,” Marlowe plunged ahead, “but one of the suspects, Father Edmund, was a witness to the murder, as it turns out, and offered a few salient observations about the murderer.”

  “To wit?”

  “He saw an oddly dressed hooded figure with yellow hair.”

  “Hardly a perfect portrait.”

  “Yes,” Marlowe agreed, “but Tin’s manner of dress, when she’s parading as a boy, is singular—all that gray.”

  “Possibly.”

  “And there is the observation, also from Edmund, that the attack on Pygott was particularly vicious. A simple murder for elimination would require stealth and speed, not ire.”

  Lopez nodded slowly.

  “And the killer did not take the Rheims-Douai Bible, which was the prize. It contained a coded message outlining certain parts of this Throckmorton plot. Pygott was not killed for it.”

  They rounded a corner. The smell of bread was almost overwhelming.

  “Then you found the button.”

  “Yes,” Marlowe said dismissively, walking faster toward what he assumed would be a kitchen, “but clues were not as important as my instinct.”

  Lopez slowed. “What?”

  Marlowe took Lopez by the arm, urging him forward.

  “Instinct,” Marlowe repeated. “Tin would have done anything for Frances. That was obvious. When we locked eyes, Tin and I, an understanding passed between us. In later contemplation I realized that I would kill anyone who tried to harm Frances, so Tin would do the same.”

  Lopez shook his head. “I wouldn’t put too much stock in that sort of thing.”

  “It produced a confession,” Marlowe snapped. “Walk faster. I’m famished.”

  * * *

  Within the hour, Lopez and Marlowe had eaten, washed their faces, smoothed ruffled clothing, and presented themselves to Lord Walsingham. Absent all guards, the three men stood in a large room bereft of tapestries or hiding places. There was a blinding array of candles, and several windows high above them let in the morning light. An enormous rug designed like a forest floor covered the stones beneath their feet. Several tables lined the walls.

  Walsingham had changed his clothing for some reason. He wore a grand dark purple robe, fit for important courtly business, and a small but crisp ruffled collar. The skullcap had been replaced by a ceremonial miter.

  “Christopher Marlowe,” Walsingham announced formally, “the Queen, in gratitude for your service to her person and to our country, hereby wishes to award you the rank of commander in the Royal Navy, with a salary of two hundred pounds per annum.”

  Marlowe swallowed, trying to find the perfect words to reject such an offer.

  “Don’t worry, my friend,” Lopez said, smiling, “I have already informed Lord Walsingham of your discomfort with the water. There will be very little actual sailing involved in this. It is a figurative appointment.”

  “You will, of course, continue your study at Cambridge,” Walsingham added.

  “But,” Marlowe began, at a loss.

  “You have acquitted yourself most admirably over the course of the past several weeks,” Walsingham said quickly.

  “As I said you would,” Lopez interjected.

  “Yes,” Walsingham continued, “and to that end, you must know the true meaning of my offer.”

  Marlowe took a moment, but it was not to think. He had the dizzy feeling that he was in some odd play, the jest of an unfathomable God.

  Lopez mistook Marlowe’s silence for hesitation.

  “You are to be Lord Walsingham’s chief investigator in London,” he explained. “When certain affairs of state present themselves—”

  “By which he means to say,” Walsingham interrupted impatiently, “murders that have any sort of affiliation with the Queen’s business—”

  “You will be charged with finding the murderer,” Lopez concluded, “and rectifying the situation.”

  Marlowe nodded. “I have no idea what either of you is saying. I have to return to Cambridge. I have year-end examinations.”

  Walsingham tossed his hand grandly. “You’ve already passed those, Mr. Marlowe. You’re on to your next year of study. You have a bit of free time now to reflect, and to gather your strength for your coming duties.”

  “I passed my—how is that—Bartholomew,” Marlowe said, nearly to himself. “He is your man. He saw to this.”

  Walsingham raised his eyebrows, but did not comment further.

  “Well, Chris?” Lopez prompted.

  “I’m to be a royal—what was it? A royal investigator?” he answered weakly.

  “The royal investigator,” Walsingham corrected.

  “With an annual salary,” Marlowe continued.

  “Not to mention,” Walsingham added, “the usual allowance for necessities: food, better clothing, several residences, of course.”

  “Of course,” Marlowe agreed.

  “You will play the part, here in London, of a carousing poet and playwright,” Lopez told him.

  “Of course,” Marlowe repeated. “What else? The best actors play what they know.”

  “Exactly,” Lopez concluded, unable to stifle a grin.

  Marlowe shifted his weight, and looked around the room.

  “This would, I suppose, offer me the opportunity to see more of Frances,” he ventured.

  “No,” Walsingham answered immediately. “You are to have no further contact with my daughter. The risk is too great.”

  Before Marlowe could prevail upon Walsingham to explain the meaning of that risk, a guard entered and strode quickly to Walsingham, handing him a note.

  “Ah,” Walsingham sighed, reading the note. “We have Frizer.”

  Marlowe looked down at the rug, as if studying its pattern, to avoid eye contact with anyone.

  “We have informed the authorities in Cambridge, and here in London, of his guilt in the matter of Walter Pygott’s death,” Walsingham told Marlowe briskly.

  Marlowe nodded. “Good. What will happen to him?”

  “To Frizer?” Walsingham asked. “We’ll find something for him. He’s been a good double for us, and will be again.”

  “He’s not to be tried for the murder?”

  “As he did not actually kill Pygott, I feel that would be unjust,” Walsingham said, not looking at Marlowe. “Would you agree?”

  “I—how did you—but—sir,” Marlowe stammered.

  “Well, then,” Walsingham said, “there’s an end to it.”

  The guard moved to escort Marlowe and Lopez from the room.

  “Sir,” Marlowe began.

  “Dr. Lopez will continue his good instruction in these matters, young man,” Walsingham said absently. “He has already agreed.”

  With that, Walsingham headed for one of the tables in the corner of the room, on to other matters of state.

  * * *

  Marlowe and Lopez were outside, strolling along the edges of the bowling green, before they spoke again. The morning air was soft, filled, at last, with the assurance of spring. The sunlight slanted hard and golden, impossible to look at directly.

  “Does he know that Tin murdered Pygott?” Marlowe whispered.

  Lopez shrugged. “Frances told him, wouldn�
��t you think?”

  Marlowe nodded slowly. “You know, for a brief moment, I suspected that you killed Pygott. Another test of my abilities.”

  Lopez avoided looking at Marlowe. “That would have been very clever of me.”

  Marlowe studied his friend’s face, but nothing was given away.

  “What do you suppose will happen to Tin?” Marlowe asked at length.

  “Again,” Lopez said, a little impatiently, “Frances will take care of that.”

  “Frances,” Marlowe moaned softly. “How am I going to manage without her?”

  “Manage?” Lopez glared at Marlowe. “What do you mean?”

  “I love her, Rodrigo.”

  “Frances Walsingham?” Lopez shook his head. “I thought you loved Penelope.”

  Marlowe stopped walking. “Well, it’s difficult not to love Penelope, despite what she’s done. I mean, you’ve seen her.”

  “Ah.” Lopez smiled and resumed his stroll.

  “No, but I,” Marlowe began, catching up, “I’m confused.”

  Lopez looked him up and down. “Confused in love? The perpetual state of the modern young man.”

  “What would you know about love?” he chided. “You’re dead.”

  Lopez held up his hand. “Listen, my friend, there is a great advantage in being dead for a while. I’ve done it several times before. You should consider it if ever your arrangement with Walsingham gets out of hand.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Marlowe countered. “What could possibly go wrong? It’s an agreement with the Queen!”

  Lopez looked away. “I have several agreements with Her Majesty. They all trouble me.”

  “Well, this won’t trouble me,” Marlowe answered lightly.

  “You’ll be trying to find the most clever murderers and assassins on the planet, Chris,” Lopez warned. “I think you’ll find that you need every trick there is.”

  “Speaking of which,” Marlowe answered, careless of Lopez’s warning, “it was very clever of you to use Argi and his men to attack Allen’s Spanish forces. I was completely fooled: I mistook them for Basque separatists. That’s the way Allen was fooled.”

  “Oh, you were not mistaken,” Lopez said. “Not entirely. They are very much agents for their own cause. But they were also useful to us. The best lies are the ones that are also true.”

  “Wait,” Marlowe said, slowing again, trying to absorb what Lopez had said. “They were working for you and for the Basque cause?”

  Lopez only nodded, but a sudden idea sparked in Marlowe’s brain.

  “Wait a moment,” Marlowe said slowly. “You were nearly killed by Moorish fighters, men whom you called hashishim.”

  “Yes, I wondered when you would ask me about them. Some of them were the men who tried to kill you and Boyle, I’m certain of that. They were Spanish assigns.”

  “Spanish,” Marlowe muttered to himself, shaking his head.

  “Do you have any idea how long the Moors ruled Spain?” Lopez began.

  “They were not sent from Pygott’s father?” Marlowe snapped.

  “They allowed John Pygott to think so, and to pay them,” Lopez answered, “but they were primarily agents of Spain.”

  “The Basque working for England, the Bedouin working for Spain—it’s madness!”

  “Yes, but consider your forged identity in this business with Walsingham. You are to play the part of a quarrelsome, headstrong poet. The fact that you are a quarrelsome, headstrong poet makes it entirely believable. You make the truth look like a lie, when in fact the lie is true.”

  Marlowe stopped altogether.

  “I’ll never be able to do this,” he said.

  Lopez kept walking. “You already do it. When you tell a girl to come with you and be your love, do you actually intend to live with her, singing and dancing all May? Or is that just something you’ve written to entice her into your bed?”

  The distance between Lopez and Marlowe widened.

  “You’ve read my poem,” Marlowe called out.

  “Everyone’s read your poem, Chris,” Lopez answered, still walking. “That’s why this will work.”

  “But I actually do mean it,” Marlowe said, “when I write it. It’s true when I say I am in love.”

  “The best lies,” Lopez repeated, “are the ones that are also true.”

  Marlowe watched Lopez walk away until the doctor disappeared behind a stand of trees.

  Then, without any warning whatsoever, Marlowe had the sensation that everything he’d ever done, would ever do, was nothing more than the insubstantial creation of God’s pen. He knew he was not a passionate shepherd, and would never live with any girl, and be her love.

  He knew, in that moment, that he was an agent for the Queen. It would be his life, a role written for him by a laughing God on pages of sunlight, with ink of darkest night.

  THIRTY-TWO

  JUNE 1583, CAMBRIDGE

  Christopher Marlowe stared across the lawn from beneath the tower of St. Benet’s Church. The summer was warm; the roses in the graveyard were still blooming. He sat on a small stone bench, composing a letter.

  Dear Father,

  I write in answer to your most recent queries. I am in good health, I acquitted myself quite well in my year-end examinations, and I remain in Cambridge to get an early start on my second year, for reasons too elaborate to discuss in this short note.

  Gossip travels faster than my letter ever could, so you may already know much of what this missive will tell you. The barest facts are these. Throckmorton is to be executed. Incriminating documents—communications between Catholic villains on the continent, Mary so-called Queen of Scots, and the Spanish ambassador Bernardino de Mendoza—were found in Throckmorton’s house. And after sufficient torture on the rack, he confessed. Mendoza has been expelled from England, and we are to have no more Spanish ambassadors in our country, thank God. Mary is under permanent confinement at Chartley Hall in Staffordshire.

  Though I am not at liberty to tell you the full extent of my adventures with Dr. Lopez, I will say that he has proved to be, as you said he would, my great teacher and true friend. Partly owing to his hand in stopping the invasion led by the Duke of Guise, he has at last been awarded the position he so rightly deserves. He is the Queen’s First Physician.

  As to my part in these matters, I will only say that it is a story best told in person, which I will do when I come home for Christmas. Except that I must ask you a strange question. Are you somehow acquainted with Lord Walsingham or, more specifically, his daughter, Frances? I ask because she undertook to call me “Kit” on several occasions. As you are the progenitor of that appellation, and the only other person who has ever used it, I wonder if you two have met. Something else to discuss at Christmas.

  Until then I remain your devoted and loving son,

  Kit

  P.S. I have included in this envelope the poem I have been working on. It’s not finished. They never are. I hope it amuses you:

  THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD

  Come live with me and be my love,

  And we will all the pleasures prove

  That hills and valleys, dales and fields,

  Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

  And we will sit upon the rocks,

  Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks

  By shallow rivers, to whose falls

  Melodious birds sing madrigals.

  And I will make thee beds of roses

  And a thousand fragrant posies;

  A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

  Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

  A gown made of the finest wool

  Which from our pretty lambs we pull;

  Fair-lined slippers for the cold,

  With buckles of the purest gold;

  A belt of straw and ivy-buds,

  With coral clasps and amber-studs:

  And if these pleasures may thee move,

  Come live with me, and be my love.

  The sheph
erd-swains shall dance and sing

  For thy delight each May-morning:

  If these delights thy mind may move,

  Then live with me and be my love.

  A FEW OF THE HISTORICAL PERSONAGES

  1. Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593) was arguably the foremost playwright of his day. He was certainly a great influence on Shakespeare, who only came to prominence after Marlowe’s suspicious death at a public house in Deptford.

  2. Sir Francis Walsingham (1532–1590) was Queen Elizabeth’s first secretary from 1573 until his death, and is the man for whom the term spymaster was invented.

  3. Frances Walsingham, Countess of Essex and Countess of Clanricarde (1567–1633), was the daughter of Francis Walsingham. She became the wife of poet Philip Sidney when she turned sixteen. Her second husband was Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, one of Queen Elizabeth’s favorites. After Devereux’s execution in 1601 Frances married Richard Burke, 4th Earl of Clanricarde. She died in Ireland.

  4. Sir Francis Throckmorton (1554–1584) was a conspirator against Queen Elizabeth. Educated in Oxford, he traveled to the continent often, meeting with Catholic expatriates from England, mostly in Spain and France. Sometime between 1580 and 1583, in Paris, he met Charles Paget and Thomas Morgan, agents of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Throckmorton Plot began.

  5. Elizabeth Throckmorton, Lady Raleigh (1565–1647), the conspirator’s cousin, became Sir Walter Raleigh’s wife in a hidden ceremony in 1591. She had been a Lady of the Privy Chamber to the Queen, but the secret marriage resulted in great enmity between the Queen and Raleigh for many years.

  6. Dr. Rodrigo Lopez (1525–1594) was a Portuguese physician who served Queen Elizabeth. He was the likely inspiration for Marlowe’s play The Jew of Malta, and Shakespeare’s Shylock. At the beginning of 1593, Lopez was a wealthy and respected royal physician. Toward the end of that year Robert Devereux accused Lopez of conspiring with Spanish Catholics to poison the Queen. Lopez was convicted in February of 1594, and subsequently hanged, drawn, and quartered.

  7. Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork (1566–1643) was Lord Treasurer of the Kingdom of Ireland. He was born in Canterbury and went to The King’s School with Marlowe and then Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, England, in 1583. Eventually on the Privy Council and a Member of Parliament, Boyle has been called the first colonial millionaire.