Queen's Progress

by M. J. Trow

  Marlowe smiled. ‘In that case,’ he said, Machiavellian to the last, ‘I have an idea.’

  ‘Out with it.’

  ‘No,’ Marlowe said, ‘not yet. It needs to digest a while longer yet. I’ll share another drink with you, Nicholas, and wait for our lads to join us, then I’m off to Paternoster Row, to the stationer’s. There’s a book there that I should have read a long time ago.’

  Marlowe went nowhere without paper and ink; who knew when inspiration might strike? When he had first taken to the life of a playwright and poet, he had often written stanzas on shirtsleeves, odes on table tops, but that could become awkward and the laundresses began to complain. Quills he could fashion anywhere, but in his saddlebags he always had a roll of parchment and a sealed bottle of the best ink. A dab of wax when he had finished and he was good until the next lightning strike. Now, he flattened out four sheets of parchment and penned his missives to the disgruntled lords of Farnham, Cowdray and Petworth and the Bishop of Chichester. It almost gave him physical pain to write such simple words, but he refused to sugar this pill. He wrote the same to everyone – he was so sorry that for reasons of security it would not be possible to allow the Queen to visit anywhere that had been the scene of a crime, but he and the Queen would be more than delighted if – and here he changed the details to include siblings, wives, children and sundry hangers-on according to the recipient – would care to join the celebrations at Titchfield. Obviously, all accommodation would be under the roof of the Earl of Southampton and their servants would be given somewhere to sleep on the estate. He was their obedient servant, extremely faithfully, C. Marlowe, Esq.

  Faunt looked over his shoulder as he sanded the final sheet. ‘Who’s C. Marley when he’s at home?’ he asked. ‘Are you using a pseudonym?’

  Marlowe looked closer. ‘That is obviously Marlowe,’ he said, testily. ‘My writing is particularly clear.’

  Tom Sledd piped up. ‘You know that’s not true, Kit. How many times do the copyists have to check with you what a word is?’

  ‘My writing is clearer than Shaxsper’s,’ he pointed out, making ad hoc adjustments to the final signature. It did look a little like ‘Marley’, now he looked again.

  ‘Everyone’s writing is clearer than Shaxsper’s.’ Sledd wasn’t letting it go. ‘Being clearer than him is nothing to be proud of.’

  Marlowe folded each letter and sealed and addressed them, glancing first to make sure the right person would get the right one. Then, he handed two to Lyttleburye and two to Norfolk.

  ‘No need to make a meal of either of these,’ he told them both. ‘Just deliver and come home. Or don’t come home, if you have anything else to do – as long as you are in Titchfield for the Progress, that’s all I ask.’

  ‘Meg has invited me for whenever I want,’ Lyttleburye said, with something like awe in his voice. He had never had an invitation before – or, at least, not one that didn’t include pain and suffering for someone.

  ‘I’ll be there,’ Norfolk said, noncommittal as always. ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

  When they had left, Tom turned to Marlowe. ‘Where does he go, do you think?’ he asked.

  ‘I suppose he has a wife and a couple of screaming children somewhere out in the country,’ Faunt said. Marlowe and Sledd gave him sideways looks; if anyone knew about clandestine families out in the country, it was Nicholas Faunt.

  ‘And what about me?’ Tom asked. ‘Back to the Rose?’ He sounded torn between disappointment and relief.

  Faunt and Marlowe exchanged a glance, then Marlowe smiled. ‘As it happens, Tom, that is what we had in mind. Sit down a minute; we need to talk.’

  Leonard Lyttleburye was confused. It was not an unusual state of affairs for him, if truth be told. As Intelligencers go, he was on the lowest rung of the ladder placed against the wall of subterfuge by Robert Cecil. Yet, here he was, at Master Marlowe’s behest, wandering a house that seemed deserted. Was this what a country estate was like when the Queen’s Progress had been cancelled? He had ridden along the Hog’s Back in the heat of the day, the fields of the southlands spread on either side of him like a hazy patchwork quilt. Stooks had started appearing in a few places, but mainly the fields stood in blocks of dusty gold, waiting for the scythesman. At Farnham, he had expected woodsmen, shepherds, labourers on their baulks and washerwomen spreading linen on the tenter-grounds. Yet, here was nothing. Farnham Hall was locked and barred, its shutters closed against the sun.

  ‘Who are you and what do you want?’ a voice called from the battlements of the old keep, rising in front of him. Lyttleburye shielded his eyes from the sun and saw a young gentleman in plumed pickadil and cloak leaning over the merlon and frowning down at him.

  ‘Leonard Lyttleburye,’ he answered, ‘on the Queen’s business.’

  The young man turned to talk to someone behind him on the ramparts. Lyttleburye heard a woman’s voice, soft, quizzical.

  ‘You’d better come up,’ the young man said.

  Lyttleburye did, taking the tight spiral of the worn steps in his huge stride; for such a big man, he was light and graceful on his feet and the climb meant nothing to him. At the top, a doorway opened to the bright sun and two people stood there, a man and a woman. Cecil’s man doffed his cap. ‘I’m looking for Mistress Blanche Middleham,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve found her.’ Blanche took half a step forward, but the young man stopped her.

  ‘What business do you have?’ he wanted to know.

  Lyttleburye looked him up and down. ‘None with you, sir,’ he said.

  ‘You untutored oaf!’ the young man screamed. ‘Know your betters, sirrah!’

  A glove snaked out towards Lyttlebury’s face but the giant was too fast. He grabbed the glove and the hand that held it, swinging the young man round and pinning him by the throat. He lifted him bodily off the ground and held him at arm’s length with a powerful right hand, dangling him dangerously over the battlements.

  ‘No!’ the woman screamed, then softer, ‘Sir,’ she said, ‘I beg you not to hurt him. I am Blanche Middleham. The gentleman in your grasp is my brother, James.’

  Lyttleburye didn’t move. He just stood there, looking at the woman.

  ‘Stop struggling, James!’ Blanche hissed.

  ‘That’s good advice, young master,’ Lyttleburye said. With his spare hand, he pulled Marlowe’s letter from inside his doublet. ‘That’s for you, that is,’ he said. ‘From Master Christopher Marlowe of the Office of the Queen’s Revels. He’s sorry for any misunderstanding. And can you …’ he glanced at James for the first time. The boy had gone deathly pale, feeling nothing below his feet but the air of a forty-foot drop. ‘… and yours attend Her Majesty’s Progress at Titchfield Abbey on the fourteenth inst.?’

  Blanche blinked. Both the invitation and the messenger had unnerved her, to say the least. ‘We’d be delighted,’ she recovered herself with a tight smile, ‘wouldn’t we, James?’

  A strangled squeak was all the boy could manage. Lyttleburye moved his arm as though the insufferable shit he carried was made of finest Cathay. He put him down on his feet again and the lad half collapsed against the stonework, clutching his throat and trying to catch his breath.

  ‘Thank you,’ Blanche held out her hand for Lyttlebury to kiss, a completely wasted gesture as it turned out. ‘Tell Master Marlowe the Middlehams would be honoured for a chance to meet Her Majesty.’

  The wizard earl wore deepest black. He was still in mourning for his lost love, the Lady Barbara, and had ridden back only the day before from her funeral in the little church at Ashbery where she had been laid to rest among the Gascoignes and the lilies. Mourning became the Earl of Northumberland. His sad eyes looked dully at Jack Norfolk, standing before him in the entrance hall at Petworth. If truth be told, Norfolk had better things to do with his time than play postman to Kit Marlowe, but Kit Marlowe’s coin was as silver as the next man’s, and needs must when the Devil drives.

  ‘I don’t think s
o,’ Henry Percy was shaking his head at Marlowe’s letter, as though at the man himself. ‘I’m not sure the Queen deserves company such as mine at the moment. There would be no mirth in it.’ He walked over to the window and leaned on the sill, looking out into the park, seeing nothing. ‘There’s no sunshine when she’s gone,’ he said, turning to Norfolk with brimming eyes. ‘Only darkness, every day.’

  Norfolk looked at the broken man before him, but it was pointless wasting sympathy on him; he knew a man wallowing in it when he saw one. ‘I’m not sure it is a request, my lord,’ he said. ‘I think it’s more in the way of being a royal command.’

  Percy looked at the man for almost the first time. ‘This letter is from Marlowe,’ he pointed out, quite reasonably. ‘Look.’ He held it out to Norfolk.

  ‘I know, my lord,’ the messenger said patiently, ‘but, like all of us, he is a servant of the Queen. It is her bidding we do, ultimately.’

  Percy sighed and nodded. ‘So be it,’ he said. ‘Tell Marlowe I’ll be there, but I won’t be bringing any fireworks, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Oh,’ Norfolk smiled. ‘I’m sure there’ll be plenty of those, my lord,’ he said.

  The bunting still fluttered on the tilt yard at Cowdray as Leonard Lyttleburye cantered over it. In the knot garden, he saw the man he sought, Sir Anthony Browne, Lord Montague to the life, standing with two young men, one walking stiffly with a bandage visible under his shirt. Cecil’s man dismounted and handed the reins to a lackey, bowing to Montague.

  Montague broke the seal and read it. ‘Titchfield?’ he growled. ‘I wouldn’t soil my boots on Southampton’s ground. The man’s a child, with unnatural inclinations, if rumour is to be believed.’

  ‘What is it, Anthony?’ Lady Montague bustled out from the house, recognizing Lyttleburye as one of the servants of the Master of the Revels, that Lovelly Christopher Marlowe.

  ‘Nothing, Mrs B.,’ Montague said, looking round for his jug of claret. ‘Nothing at all.’

  Lady Montague snatched the paper and read it. ‘The Progress, Anthony!’ she trilled, clapping her hands, letter and all. ‘We’ll see the Queen.’

  ‘Not the same as having her here, though.’

  ‘Well, no,’ Lady Montague agreed, ‘but think of the boys.’ She grabbed an arm of each of her children and Martin yelped. ‘Forgive me, my precious,’ she said, automatically, her mind on other things. ‘Her Majesty can lay her sword on their shoulders at Titchfield as well as she could here at Cowdray.’

  That thought hadn’t occurred to the senior Montague and his face lifted. ‘By God, you’re right.’ He squeezed his tiny wife to his side and pulled his sons to him in a hug. ‘Sir Martin, Sir George, thank this gentleman for his kind invitation. Tell Master Marlowe we’ll all be there. Me and my two sons.’

  Lady Montague ducked under his arm, oozing between her husband and her younger son. ‘And your wife, Anthony,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, of course, Mrs B. And my wife.’

  Lyttleburye bowed and made for his horse.

  ‘And tell Southampton from me,’ Montague called to him. ‘No forty-eight-yard-long tables. That’s my idea!’

  There was a faint and distant twitter.

  ‘Our idea. Tell him.’

  But Leonard Lyttleburye had stopped listening and was soon cantering back on the road to London, and to the smell of the greasepaint which wouldn’t leave his nostrils.

  Jack Norfolk’s horse clattered into the Pallant a little after midday. Chichester was drowsing in June’s stifling heat and Norfolk was one of the few going about his business. It was cool in the chapterhouse of the cathedral and Marlowe’s man was glad of that. The sweat had soaked through his shirt and doublet and his buskins were hot to the touch.

  ‘How are you now?’ the bishop asked him, with Marlowe’s letter in his hand. ‘After that unfortunate business at the buttercross. We’ve been praying for you, you know.’

  ‘It was nothing, Your Grace,’ Norfolk said. ‘And I thank you for your prayers; someone was already watching over me that night.’

  ‘Amen to that,’ the bishop said.

  ‘And how are things here?’ Norfolk asked. ‘The shepherds?’

  ‘Back with their flocks, where they belong. All a storm in a goblet, really.’

  ‘But … your word still stands?’ Norfolk thought he had better check; bishop or no bishop, men went back on their words more often than not. ‘The enclosures?’

  Brickley nodded. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘My word stands, grate though it does. I can never be quite sure whether Simeon will be back one day.’

  ‘He’s gone?’ Norfolk asked.

  ‘Vanished like mist in the morning,’ the bishop said. ‘He and that snivel-faced clerk of his. The day after the trouble – the day after you left, in fact – I sent one of my people to see him. I wanted to be sure of his intentions, as well as showing him the enclosure paperwork. He wasn’t there. There was no one there. The house on Priory Lane was locked and barred, as though he’d never been. Tell me,’ Brickley’s eyes brightened, ‘there’s no chance of a service at Titchfield, is there? I mean, as bishop …’

  Norfolk smiled. ‘I’m sure all things are possible in Her Majesty’s presence, Your Grace.’

  THIRTEEN

  Nicholas Faunt was not comfortable with actors. Despite having spent most of his adult years working with people who wouldn’t recognize the truth if it got up and bit them on the leg, he couldn’t work out the extravagant speech, the fake bonhomie and, most especially, the sheer duplicity of almost everyone inside the Rose. Of all of its denizens, Philip Henslowe was perhaps the most confusing; to the outward eye, a man of business, pure and simple, concerned with the bottom line on a page of calculations; someone who could look at a sheet of crabbed figures and immediately tell if it was in credit or debit before anyone else could even bring their eyes into focus. He was rarely more than a groat or two out; he often said to Mistress Henslowe, on the day he couldn’t calculate a bottom line to within a gnat’s eyelash, that would be the day he retired. Or slashed his throat; it could be either.

  But, underneath, Philip Henslowe was a man seething with repressed passions. He could work off quite a few of them with the little piece near the Bear Garden, but there were others that simmered and bubbled whenever he let them rise to the surface. He was indulging in one of his favourites now. His eyrie above the Rose was hot as Hell and he had opened the little dormer window and was hanging out of it, trying to catch what breeze there might be at this height. The smells of the river and its people were far below him and, up here, he was alone with the seagulls, which swung just past his head, their razor bills open with harsh cries. He closed his eyes and lifted his chin. Surely, it couldn’t be that hard; one day, one day soon, he hoped, man would be able to fly. But in his more down-to-earth dreams, he didn’t need flight; just the gentle touch of royal steel on his shoulder. He could almost hear the words, spoken in the soft voice he knew his Queen must possess. ‘Arise, Sir Philip, knighted for services to the theatre but most of all, for saving my life when—’

  ‘Master Henslowe?’

  ‘No,’ the theatre owner murmured, ‘Sir Philip—’

  ‘Master Henslowe!’

  He jumped, banging his head on the window frame. Spinning round, he snapped at the clerk standing in the doorway. ‘What?’

  ‘Master Henslowe,’ the man cowered, ‘a Master Faunt to see you.’

  Henslowe didn’t know Faunt well, but he knew that a visit from him would not be merely to tell him how much he had enjoyed the show. He sighed, straightened his hair and tweaked his ruff into position. This hot weather played merry Hell with box-office receipts and now, Nicholas Faunt. And the day had started so well – waking up next to the cool back of his little piece near the Bear Garden; a brief interlude – necessarily brief, what with his age and the heat – and then on to the real love of his life, the Rose. Then, when he had arrived, what had met him? The distressingly low takings; someone had put th
eir foot through Tamburlaine’s chariot and one of the carpenters had nailed through his apprentice’s hand, some were saying not wholly by accident. And now – Nicholas Faunt. Please, God, he said in his head, enough now, please don’t test me any more.

  ‘Master Faunt!’ He stepped forward, hand outstretched. ‘What a delightful surprise. Er …’ he glanced at the clerk, ‘I wasn’t expecting you, was I?’ Over Faunt’s shoulder, the clerk shook his head.

  ‘Not at all, Master Henslowe,’ Faunt could gush for England if he had to. ‘I called in on what you might almost call a whim, in fact. You see, I have a problem which I believe you can solve for me.’

  Philip Henslowe could scarcely forbear from laughing in the man’s face. He could hardly keep abreast of his own problems, let alone solve someone else’s. But he had heard things about Nicholas Faunt, so he said, ‘If I can, Master Faunt. If I can.’

  ‘You may know about Master Marlowe and Master Sledd helping facilitate the Queen’s latest Progress?’

  Was this a trap? Was he supposed to know? Was it treason if he knew? Henslowe’s eyes went from side to side like rats in a trap. This was Cecil’s England as much as Gloriana’s; you couldn’t be too careful.

  Faunt waited for an answer and when none was forthcoming, he continued. ‘They have been planning masques, things of that nature. However, the Fates have not smiled on them in their endeavours. There have been … incidents … and so we have reason to fear for the Queen’s safety.’

  This struck a chord with Henslowe and his eyes both faced forward and focused on Faunt. ‘The Queen? In danger?’ This needed to be stopped; if his dreams of knighthood under Elizabeth were far-flown, he knew he stood no chance under that little Scottish gowk that most men said would surely follow. ‘You have my attention, Master Faunt. How may I help you?’

  Marlowe and the stage manager received their usual welcome as they penetrated into the rooms behind the stage; they were completely ignored by all present, both great and small. Most of the people milling around pretended they had never been away. The remainder didn’t know they had been away, as they were part of the constantly replaced servants at the very lowest edge of humanity who were there to pick up thrown vegetables and whatever else the groundlings saw fit to leave behind when they exited the pit. The job was well paid as such jobs went – and it needed to be; most of those employed in it lasted on average three days before revulsion sent them screaming.