by M. J. Trow
‘If I could just have your attention for a moment, everyone?’ Marlowe shouted and the rabble’s murmur died away. ‘I won’t go into every detail about what we’re about to achieve, except to say, it will very likely save the Queen’s life and the life we all lead under her. I can’t stress too much that you need to curb gossip and make sure you stay in character if anyone not of the company is nearby. Some of you have specific tasks; you know who you are. I just need to check that some key players are here. Please raise your hand.’ He looked down at a parchment in his hand, but didn’t need to refer to it; he had the list off by heart. ‘Ned Alleyn.’
The actor raised a languid hand. He was standing near to one of the more comfortable carriages, draped in two inconsolable Winchester geese; they would miss the income over the next week or so.
‘Richard Burbage.’
‘Here.’ The actor was almost under his feet and it was credit to Marlowe’s nerve that he didn’t fall back into the Bear Pit with shock.
‘Band leader.’
No response.
‘Band leader? Do we have …?’
‘He’s not coming,’ a voice called from the back. ‘His wife says he can’t come. The hautbois is taking over instead.’
‘I don’t really mind,’ Marlowe said, making a note on the parchment. ‘As long as you can make plenty of noise. Umm … Prudence and Alys I’ve already seen.’ He looked up. ‘Frizer? Skeres?’ Two hands went up. ‘You’ve had a word with Master Faunt?’ The hands waved assent. ‘Good. Well, if Tom Sledd is on the leading cart …’ a hand waved, ‘then off you go and I look forward to seeing your arrival at Titchfield with Gloriana in all her splendour. Break a leg, people. And thank you.’
Marlowe jumped down from the wall and turned to Lyttleburye. ‘You have everything in place, Leonard, for …?’
‘Sshh,’ the big man admonished him. ‘Careless talk costs lives, don’t forget, Master Marlowe.’
‘You’re quite right, Leonard,’ Marlowe agreed, suitably chastened. ‘I know I can rely on you. Are you in the lead wagon with Tom?’
‘No, Master Marlowe. I’m in the rear.’ He looked down at his erstwhile employer. ‘Don’t worry, Master Marlowe,’ he rumbled. ‘You can rely on us.’
Marlowe smiled and patted an arm like a tree. ‘I know I can, Leonard,’ he said. ‘I know I can.’
And with a cry from Tom Sledd, the first wagon rolled, its wheels crunching over the cobbles on its way to Titchfield and glory.
FOURTEEN
The clash of steel rang below the mellow stone walls of the abbey. Two men of an age with each other faced it out in the meadows, knee high with cornflowers and poppies, the red petals flying like blood from the delicate stems. They wore expensive venetians and silk shirts open at the throat, the rapiers in their hands scraping and sliding together as they circled each other.
Marlowe and Faunt had reined in their horses on the ridge and looked down on the summer scene. The abbey still retained its medieval monasticism, but the reredorter was an empty shell now and a wealthy gentleman’s stately home had grown up around it, half-timbering jostling with Italian pargetting and the playing of half a dozen fountains. From somewhere, the melancholy chords of a lute drifted over the river Meon, where the ducks dabbled and the moorhens squeaked their two-pronged cry, like a wet thumb on glass.
‘That’s him,’ Faunt said, ‘on the left, with the golden hair.’
Henry Wriothesley was seventeen; already, with his father gone, the Earl of Southampton. He was tall, strikingly handsome, with a mane of flaxen hair that hung over one shoulder nearly to his waist. His eyes were a piercing blue and his chin a touch too long.
‘His annual income is ten thousand and ninety-seven pounds, if that kind of thing interests you,’ Faunt told Marlowe. ‘He’s supposed to be engaged to old Burghley’s granddaughter, but they say he’s none too keen.’
‘Somebody else?’ Marlowe asked. After all, he knew Henry Percy, who fell in love weekly with a passion only the aristocracy could afford to indulge.
‘Yes – Henry Wriothesley,’ Faunt chuckled. ‘They say there are more mirrors in Titchfield Abbey than any other great house in the country. Besides …’ Faunt pointed to the fencers below, ‘… Mister HW is not as other peers of the realm.’
As the swordsmen passed each other, Wriothesley pecked his opponent on the cheek and the pair started giggling before coming back to the ‘en garde’.
‘There’s a clerk in Chancery,’ Faunt told Marlowe, ‘name of Clapham. He’s a poet of sorts. He’s just dedicated an ode to the third earl. It’s called Narcissus. Apt, eh?’
‘Does the earl approve?’
Faunt laughed. ‘With an ego the size of his, he is no doubt delighted.’
The swordsmen heard the guffaw and broke off the bout. Wriothesley crossed to a table and took a swig from the goatskin there. ‘You, fellow,’ he called to Faunt. ‘What are you laughing at, pizzle?’
‘Oh, dear,’ Faunt muttered under his breath. ‘I hope this isn’t going to end in tears.’ He and Marlowe spurred their mounts forward and they trotted down the rise to the meadow.
‘I was betting my friend here,’ Faunt said to Wriothesley, ‘that he couldn’t possibly beat the Earl of Southampton in a set of passes. He said he could – hence my laughter, my lord. I’m sorry if it disturbed you.’ Marlowe tried not to look at Faunt – the man was a loss to the stage, for sure; he could act all the actors of the Rose off that stage and into the pit when he put his mind to it.
Wriothesley looked at the horsemen. Roisterers both, well mounted and well armed. But he had seen neither of them at Court. In particular, he looked at Marlowe. The man was … what? Ten years his senior? Ten years slower. Ten more years out of condition. He would pose no problem.
‘Benedict,’ he said to his fencing companion, ‘come to my chamber at ten. Elizabeth is indisposed and I have need of company.’ He grabbed Benedict by the hand and kissed him full on the lips. ‘Now, be off with you.’
‘Er … I think I should stay, Henry,’ Benedict said.
‘Nonsense.’ Wriothesley took up his blade again and stretched his right leg to full lunge, skewering the air with his rapier. ‘This … gentleman won’t detain me long.’
Reluctantly, Benedict collected his doublet from the table and bowed to the company before striding off through the tall grass. Faunt and Marlowe dismounted. ‘If he should kill me …’ Marlowe murmered out of the corner of his mouth.
‘Don’t worry,’ Faunt smiled, clapping him heartily on the shoulder and taking the reins of both animals, ‘I’ll see you get a good send-off.’
‘Gratifying,’ Marlowe scowled, unhooking his Colleyweston cloak and flinging it across the saddle.
‘Now, sir,’ Wriothesley was testing the spring of his blade in both hands. ‘If you’d be so good as to tell me your name. I always like to know who I’m killing.’
Marlowe unbuttoned his doublet and hooked it neatly on his saddlebow, brushing out the creases before turning back to his would-be opponent. ‘Killed many men have you, my lord?’ he asked.
‘Enough, you impudent rogue,’ Wriothesley lied. There was something in Marlowe’s eyes that made him wish he hadn’t sent Benedict away so precipitously.
‘Very well. I am Christopher Marlowe.’
Wriothesley frowned. ‘Marlowe, like the playwright?’
‘Marlowe the playwright, indeed.’ Marlowe bowed to him, unhooking his sword belt and sliding the weapon from the sheath.
‘I’ve heard of you,’ the earl said. ‘They say you’re not half bad, that you have a mighty line.’
‘I have a mighty thrust too, my lord, if you’d care to see it.’
Wriothesley had backed himself into a corner. He was vaguely aware of his people creeping nearer to the grassy arena, his woodsmen, his herdsmen, even maids of all work from the house. They were used to seeing the master and Benedict playing swordsmen, but this was different. Even so, witnesses or not, these were the tenants
of the Southampton estate. He was their master. He daren’t lose face.
‘Spanish school?’ Wriothesley asked, trying not to squeak too much. ‘French? Italian?’
Marlowe smiled. ‘The staying alive school,’ he said, and launched himself at the earl who parried furiously. Twice, three times, Marlowe beat him back, then he paused, letting Wriothesley catch his breath. ‘Good defence, my lord,’ he said. ‘Have you an attack to match?’
Predictably, the earl attacked in sixte. Marlowe’s riposte flashed like fire in the morning sun and Wriothesley dropped to one knee, caught hopelessly off-balance. In a second, Marlowe was standing over him and behind, his sword blade horizontal under the man’s chin, tickling his throat. ‘First blood to me, I think,’ Marlowe whispered in his ear. ‘Would you like that to be for real?’ He edged the blade upwards until he heard the boy gulp. Then he bent to his ear again, the pearl earring dangling against the sweat-soaked locks. ‘We have reason to believe, my lord,’ he whispered, ‘that your life is in danger.’ And he released the blade and the man, watching the young earl collapse in a heap in the grass. Marlowe crossed to his horse and sheathed the sword, collecting his doublet as he did so.
‘You’ve made an enemy there,’ Faunt muttered as he passed him.
‘With a little help from you,’ Marlowe muttered back. He turned to Wriothesley and helped him up. ‘My apologies, my lord,’ he said. ‘We are here on Queen’s business.’ It was almost unnecessary to flash the cypher, but Faunt did it anyway.
‘The Progress,’ Wriothesley nodded, scowling at Marlowe and taking a huge swig from the goatskin.
Marlowe kept his voice low. He too had seen Southampton’s people standing under the trees, gossiping, watching, a few of the bolder ones exchanging a few coins from their ad-hoc bets. ‘There is to be an attempt on Her Majesty’s life, we believe. And perhaps yours.’
‘My God!’ Wriothesley stood open-mouthed.
‘Can you think of anyone who would want you dead?’
‘Er … well,’ the earl cleared his throat, anxious to reassert what dignity he could. ‘I am fabulously handsome, of course, tolerably rich …’
‘Of course.’ Marlowe soothed the man’s ego. ‘But, specifically … Somebody in your past?’
‘My …?’ At seventeen, it was debatable how much of a past the Earl of Southampton actually had. ‘Well,’ he decided to play the man of the world, ‘I am a bencher of Gray’s Inn, of course.’
Marlowe looked at Faunt and both men shook their heads and sucked in their breath.
‘What?’ Wriothesley panicked, staring from one to the other as Marlowe finished dressing. ‘Is that a problem?’
‘It could be,’ Faunt nodded. ‘You know what they say about lawyers.’
‘I do?’ Wriothesley blinked. ‘What? What do they say?’
‘If you don’t know, my lord,’ Marlowe said sadly, ‘it’s not for us to tell you. Who else?’
‘What?’
Marlowe frowned, looking into the boy’s blue eyes. ‘Who else would want to see you dead, my lord?’
‘Um … well, I graduated from St John’s, Cambridge.’
‘Oh, bad luck,’ Marlowe commiserated.
‘Look,’ Wriothesley decided to change tack, to see the bigger picture, whatever muddled metaphor his young brain could conjure. ‘When did you say the Queen was coming?’
‘I didn’t,’ Marlowe shrugged.
‘Sorry,’ Faunt pulled the horses forward, ‘that’s classified information, I’m afraid. Can you put us up somewhere?’
‘What? Er … oh, yes. Yes, of course.’ And, as he walked with them towards the abbey, he called out cheerily, for the benefit of his people, ‘Welcome, gentlemen, to Place House. I’m sure you’ll be very comfortable here.’
‘But I understood there was to be a masque, a ball and a banquet,’ Wriothesley complained after Faunt and Marlowe had explained the prevailing situation to him in very simple words and short sentences, so that Benedict could easily follow. ‘It was all going to be under the stars. Benedict and I plan to come on as Castor and Pollux, don’t we, Benedict?’
‘How apt,’ Faunt smiled. Benedict said nothing at all. He was looking at himself from a number of angles in the Earl of Southampton’s hall of mirrors, turning this way and that to see the effect of the light.
‘Tell us, my lord,’ Marlowe tried to get comfortable on the low Turkish divan, ‘how well do you know His Grace the Earl of Northumberland?’
‘Henry Percy?’ Wriothesley was sitting in a high chair as his French hairdresser fussed around him, easing his golden locks with a pair of curling tongs. ‘Sat in the Lords with him once. Fellow’s a bore. Talked about astrolabes and celestial spheres. I’ll admit most of it went over my head. Petworth’s a frightful monstrosity, of course. Gently, Antoine, we don’t want a bald Castor for the great occasion, do we?’
The Frenchman muttered something incomprehensible and continued to curl.
‘What about Anthony Browne, Lord Montague?’
‘Man’s an oaf,’ Wriothesley assured Marlowe. ‘New money. No class. No breeding.’
‘What about the Middlehams, my lord?’ Marlowe persisted. ‘The late Sir Walter and his family.’
‘Never heard of them,’ Wriothesley said. He raised a hand to stop the Frenchman curling. ‘Look, Marlowe, where is all this going? Are you just name-dropping for the sake of it? Or are you testing my knowledge of the landowners of the south of England? Because if you are, I warn you, I’m not that interested.’
‘Master Marlowe has reason to ask, my lord,’ Faunt thought it was time he chipped in. ‘The safety of the Queen …’
‘Her Majesty will be as safe under my roof as anywhere in England. These gentlemen, Benedict, think that my life may be in danger.’
‘No! Promise me you’ll take every care.’ He had clasped Wriothesley’s hands in both of his, elbowing the luckless Frenchman aside. Then he scowled at Marlowe and Faunt. ‘You sit there, both of you, and you tell me that His Grace is in grave peril and you do nothing about it?’ His face had turned purple and a vein throbbed in his forehead.
‘On the contrary,’ said Marlowe, ‘we are doing a great deal about it. Shall we, Nicholas?’ and he led the way to the door.
‘Give me air!’ Marlowe hissed as he reached the roof leads of Place House and looked down on the sunset fields below. A drover, with dog and bells, was bringing the cattle home for milking and a heron dipped its bill into the trout-ringed waters of the lake. Across to the east, somewhere between where he stood and London, a motley caravan of carts and wagons was converging on some open space, to camp, cook, sleep and probably terrify the locals. He hoped that they were still together, that Sledd and Lyttleburye between them could control their rabble which would, all too soon, need to enter in triumph to Titchfield. Norfolk had beaten them to it; not being stage struck like Lyttleburye, he had made his way there straight from Chichester. If there was one skill Norfolk possessed in spades, it was working out a shortcut to avoid too much excess expenditure of energy; he believed in keeping his powder dry against the day, and not working himself up into an unnecessary lather seemed to be the easiest way. He had found himself a comfortable little outhouse with easy access to the kitchen.
‘I know what you mean,’ Faunt smiled. ‘Take a bit of getting used to, don’t they, Castor and Pollux?’
‘They do indeed,’ Marlowe said, ‘but are we any further forward?’
‘Queen-killing is a complex business, Marlowe,’ Faunt told him, crossing his arms on the warm stone of Titchfield’s buttress-tops. ‘You wouldn’t expect it to be easy.’
‘Assuming I’m right,’ Marlowe was thinking it through, ‘that everything is pointing to this place, what can we expect?’
Faunt checked the position of the dying sun and turned around. ‘Her Majesty will come from there,’ he said, pointing to the north-east, ‘along the Hog’s Back and through the Vale of the White Horse.’
‘Past hedgerows,’ Marl
owe nodded, looking to the fields that stretched to the horizon, ‘ditches, forests, bends in the road. Over hill, over dale, through bush, through brier, over park, over pale – to cut a long journey short, past places of ambush without number. We can’t be with her every step of the way, Nicholas.’
‘No, we can’t,’ the ex-projectioner agreed, ‘but something tells me there’s rhyme and reason to all this. Our man, whoever he is, won’t be content with some hole-in-corner murder, a shot in the dark. He’s planning something much more spectacular.’
Marlowe nodded. ‘You may be right,’ he said. ‘I’m going to turn in.’ He was yawning already, a leather tome in his hand.
‘Good book?’ Faunt asked.
Marlowe held it up for him to read the title, the setting sun picking out the gilding on the spine.
‘Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland,’ Faunt read. ‘Ralph Holinshed. Careful, Marlowe, that’s subversive stuff.’
‘Is it?’ Marlowe was surprised.
‘The Privy Council demanded the stationers removed certain passages to that second edition. They were offensive to the Queen.’
‘Were they now?’ Marlowe asked. ‘Well,’ he tapped the volume, smiling at Faunt, ‘the rest of it might just keep her alive.’
The entourage-in-waiting had finally reached its last overnight camp before Titchfield and there was no one who wasn’t happy that they were almost there at last. Some were nervous; it had been fun trundling through the leafy lanes of England with their friends, calling out to cottagers who came to their doorsteps, curious as to know who it was who was kicking up so much dust, ruining their laundry stretched over the bushes in their gardens. Some passed handfuls of strawberries, raspberries and gooseberries to the passing show; others threw vegetables from the remains of the clamps in their gardens. All were gratefully received, the former to quench the dusty throats of the travellers, the latter to eke out the few rabbits in their pots at night. The musicians did the best of all; they sang and played as they went and had collected a tidy sum before they finally made camp that night.
