by M. J. Trow
‘So,’ Scot asked him, ‘would you say she has magical powers?’
Marlowe chewed his lip. He had seen some things, not all of them explicable in the normal way, but taken overall, magical powers were not the kind of thing you expected to find in an ignorant old woman the size of a small cart, out in the middle of nowhere. ‘I think she knows people, and how to move them about in their own heads to suit her purposes. She can bend the unwary to her will.’
Scot looked at him and smiled. His expression was suggestive of someone whose dog has just performed the trick they had been years perfecting. ‘You are an interesting man, Master Marlowe, and one day I will find out more about you, but for now, I want to find out more of this old crone of the stones. If you questioned her about who she is and what she does here, what would she tell you, do you think?’
‘I don’t need to question her. She stays here to gull travellers out of a few paltry pence. She told Ned to put a coin for each one of us at the stone that watches.’
‘Could he work that one out?’ Scot said, leaning forward over his paper, ink dripping on to his boot.
Marlowe moved his hand aside, not out of care for the man’s attire, but for his own. ‘Ned is not stupid, Reginald,’ he said. ‘He is a little over dramatic, perhaps, and sometimes a little over zealous, but he has kept this troupe fed and watered and on the road safely these many months and a stupid man couldn’t do that. In this case, he would probably have worked it out, but he noticed Nat Sawyer behaving somewhat inappropriately for the amusement of the women. It involved a carrot and the stone with a hole in – it gave Ned all the clue he needed.’
‘Did he leave the money?’
‘He says not.’
‘But, did he leave the money?’
‘Of course. But that doesn’t make him stupid, just careful.’
Scot looked over at the rehearsal. Sledd had Martin by the throat and seemed to be trying to shake some lines into him. It was impossible at this remove to tell if it was having any effect. He turned back to Marlowe. ‘But, say for a moment, just to please me, that you had to find out something which she knew and would not tell you. How would you go about it?’
Marlowe had a persuasive tongue and rarely had to use more than that to find things out. He knew there were other methods, which he tried not to think about too much; one of those dread engines might well be his future. He shrugged.
‘Well,’ said Scot, tiring of the chase. ‘You could use one of these . . .’ He rummaged in his knapsack and pulled out a steel bodkin, five inches long with a deadly point.
‘Pretty,’ said Marlowe, drawing back a little.
‘I got it in Bamberg,’ Scot told him. ‘It’s a witch pricker.’
‘So . . . threaten the old girl with one of these and she’ll tell you anything. You might need a longer one for the lady in question, though.’
Scot smiled again. ‘That’s not exactly how it works,’ he said, and lunged at Marlowe with the pricker. The poet, sitting cross-legged almost knee to knee with Scot, had no time to react and the spike thudded into his doublet a little above the heart. He grunted with the impact and his hand was already behind his back reaching for his dagger. But there was no pain. No blood. Nothing.
‘Sorry,’ said Scot, sitting back again in the upright position and taking his bodkin with him. ‘Just proving a point, you might say. Or the lack of one.’ He pressed his finger against the bodkin’s tip and it slid up inside the hilt. ‘Ingenious, isn’t it?’
Marlowe took the thing. ‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ he said.
‘Around here,’ Scot said, ‘that’s very likely. You felt no pain, then, when I stabbed you?’
‘None,’ Marlowe said. ‘Just the pressure of the blow.’
‘And you’re not bleeding?’
Marlowe frowned and smiled at the same time. ‘Do you want me to look?’ he asked. ‘Is this another trick, Master Witch Finder?’
‘I’m not a witch finder,’ Scot said grimly. ‘And yes, what men call witchcraft is entirely trickery. It’s an illusion. Smoke and mirrors. Let me paint you a different picture. Imagine the crone under interrogation. She’s stripped naked, bound hand and foot. She can’t move, but she can see, and she can feel. If I were a witch finder, I’d ask her about her familiars: her cat, her dog, even the lice that crawl in her hair. Did the Devil send them? Does she suckle them? And if so, from where? Where is the Devil’s mark, the witch’s tit? Her own nipples? No, they once gave milk, but not blood. A mole then, like Lord Strange’s, but somewhere on the body, hidden under her clothing. But nothing is hidden now, remember? She’s naked, shamed and ridiculed and exposed to the gaze of men. I find such a mole. I tell her that if that is the Devil’s mark, she will feel no pain as I prick her. There will be no blood. And lo . . .’ This time, Scot jabbed the bodkin into his own chest. He looked at Marlowe and made the sign of the cross. ‘The Devil is in you, mother. Look, look, how you did not cry out; how you do not bleed.’
He glanced across at the old woman for the first time, stirring her cooking pot on a fire built behind the Whispering Knights and singing softly to herself. ‘Irrefutable evidence of damned witchcraft,’ Scot said, ‘and they’d hang her for it. Can you see her, Kit, her wretched old body creaking in the wind?’
But Kit Marlowe wasn’t looking at the miserable old woman of Scot’s imagination, twirling at the rope’s end. He was squinting into the sun, trying to make out what was causing the flashes of light on the slope of the hill to the north. The flashes were bright, halting, intermittent and below them, in the heat of the July day, Marlowe could just make out a horseman. The horseman he had thought was Nicholas Faunt when they were on their way to Clopton.
‘What’s that, Reginald?’ he asked. ‘Those lights flashing over there?’
Scot half turned and focused his eyes through the heat haze, watching as the lights flickered once more and vanished. ‘That’s Meon Hill, laddie. Better you don’t ask.’
TWELVE
The golden day had gone, leaving a sky of purple and amber, like the bars across a fire in a cottage home. All day, Sledd had put his cast through their paces. St George, the Dragon and the Turkish Knight it would be and Kit Marlowe had rustled up a quick prologue to give the whole thing a bit of a lift.
Will Shaxsper read it tolerably well, despite endless suggestions on how it could be improved. Old Joseph was ready to kill for the part, standing at Shaxsper’s side and reading over his shoulder like some drunken echo.
‘“Now see the rolling hills of golden thread,
Now see great England’s heroes stand,
St George of red cross fame; a knight apart
The greatest knight of all this sacred land.” Deathless, dear boy.’ Joseph was in raptures. ‘A mighty line indeed.’
Marlowe cringed. It was far from his best and, to be fair, his mind was on other things than iambic pentameter. But with Oxford beckoning in two days time, it would have to do. He was lolling against a wagon wheel idly strumming a lute to some half-forgotten tune when Thomas shouted from the elder stand to the north, ‘Riders coming. Our way. To the north-east.’
Sledd and Scot were on their feet first, crossing to the stones and the road that lay beyond. Martin was with them, then Shaxsper and the others.
‘Kit,’ Sledd called to him. ‘You’d better come and see this.’
A little procession was winding its way up the slope of the hill towards them, torches guttering in the breeze. The watchers at the stones heard the thud of the horses’ feet and the creak of a wagon.
‘It’s a funeral,’ said Thomas, trying to make out the details.
‘And it’s coming our way,’ said Shaxsper, crossing himself out of habit.
The horse at the head of the solemn procession was ridden by a lady, trailing black weeds of mourning, fluttering gently in the currents of cooling evening air. By the horse’s head and carrying a torch, a tall, sombre-looking fellow, wearing an old sword, kept even pace with the ambling animal
. Behind them was a bier on wheels, draped with a flag that Marlowe knew. ‘Those are the Clopton arms,’ he said, ‘and that is Sir William Clopton’s funeral cortège.’
The others stood rooted to the spot, but Marlowe dashed between the stones and ran down the hill towards them. The lead horse halted, snorting and tossing its black-bridled head.
‘My Lady.’ Marlowe bowed. Joyce Clopton sat sidesaddle, her face pale in the half moonlight against her sepulchral black.
‘Kit,’ she said quietly. ‘Oh, Kit!’ And he helped her down, cradling her in his arms as Boscastle steadied the horse. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, all the pain of her upturned world trickling down her cheeks. ‘I had nowhere else to go.’
And he held her at arm’s length.
Dawn was glowing as a distant cockerel heralded it, from somewhere to the south where the sleepy Cotswold villages were stirring. Joyce Clopton had fallen asleep, finally and her head lay on Kit Marlowe’s chest. He looked beyond her and saw the worn-out faces of her people. They lay in huddles under the wagons with Lord Strange’s Men, wrapped in cloaks and snoring softly in the morning. There were only a handful of them, those who were diehard loyalists, who had served the Cloptons all their lives. Those who had no kin or friends in Stratford; those not wedded to the stone and the timbers but to the heiress of Clopton herself. Only Boscastle sat upright against a wagon wheel, wide awake and watchful.
Marlowe eased the girl down so that she lay on the blankets on the ground and he laid his Colleyweston cloak over her shoulders. He crossed the grass in silent strides and sat down next to the Clopton’s steward.
‘A sorry scene, this,’ he said.
‘Aye, sir.’ Boscastle nodded. ‘And one I never thought to see.’
‘What are Lady Joyce’s plans, Boscastle?’ Marlowe asked. ‘Do you know?’
‘The day before yesterday, I found her wandering the elder woods at Clopton,’ the steward said. ‘Singing to herself, she was, a song of the nursery, Master Marlowe, from when she was a little girl. I don’t mind telling you –’ he looked the man in the eye – ‘I cried a little too.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Men aren’t supposed to do that, are they?’
Marlowe smiled. ‘Good men do.’
‘She spoke of taking her father’s body to the south-west. The Carew family are distant cousins. George of that name and Lady Joyce were betrothed at one time.’
‘Were they?’ Marlowe asked. He knew there was many a slip when betrothals happened early.
Boscastle smiled at the memory of it. ‘There was nothing formal. She was seven, he a year older. She came running to me in the old woods, dragging this hapless, confused boy by the hand and said “Boscastle –”’ his voice became higher in his fond mimicry of her – ‘“Boscastle, congratulate us. We are betrothed.”’
‘So she had a mind of her own even then,’ Marlowe said, laughing.
‘Oh, she did,’ Boscastle said, remembering. ‘They’d kissed, you see. Joyce and George. And to her, that was it. A promise of marriage. She was going to have twenty children, apparently.’
‘And George?’
Boscastle chuckled. ‘George didn’t look too keen. A bit bemused by the whole thing, if you ask me.’
The pair fell silent as Boscastle’s smile faded and his face darkened into a frown. ‘But the south-west is far away,’ he said. ‘And they’ll be coming.’
‘They?’ Marlowe asked. ‘Who?’
‘Did Lady Joyce not tell you? About Greville, I mean?’
‘She did,’ Marlowe told him. She had blurted it all out through the tears as they lay under the stars beyond the Whispering Knights. ‘But I assumed that once she’d left Clopton . . .’
Boscastle chuckled grimly. ‘It must have slipped her mind,’ he said. ‘It may be a sacrilege, Master Marlowe and I own it was my idea if anyone is to be damned for it, but in the coffin with the master is what we could gather together of the family gold and silver – by Sir Edward’s rights, his.’
‘And the movables thereof,’ Marlowe said, quoting the fatuous law.
‘Indeed, sir,’ Boscastle said. ‘Now, mercifully, I don’t know Sir Edward Greville very well, but I do know he’s a greedy bastard who doesn’t like being cheated. That lawyer of his . . .’
‘Blake?’
‘That toad’ll reckon up what’s missing soon enough and his High and Mightiness will be on the road to get it back. We didn’t exactly disguise our tracks. Everybody remembers a funeral on the road. All they’ll have to do is ask.’
Marlowe stood up to look over the wagon at the road snaking into the morning, to the north-east. ‘If you’re right,’ he said to the steward, ‘how much time do you think we have?’
Boscastle looked around him at the pitiful remnants of the Clopton people, at the large number of women with Strange’s Men. ‘Not enough, Master Marlowe,’ he said. ‘Not nearly enough.’
‘A funeral, sisters,’ one of the women hidden in the small stand of trees said, licking her lips with a pointed and blackened tongue.
‘Yes,’ said one of her companions, leaning against a tree to scratch a recalcitrant louse biting her back. ‘But why here?’ She rummaged in her ear and inspected the results. She carefully harvested the wax from under her fingernail into a small bag hung around her waist.
‘I know the woman,’ a voice said from ground level. ‘It’s her father in that coffin.’
The first speaker, the keeper of fire and stone at the Rollrights gave her a look. She knew that they were all sisters under the skin, but sometimes these newcomers got above their station, speaking out of turn. The conversation had been going nicely widdershins round the circle, as it should, when she had spoken. Still, she was young. Another thing to hold against her, to hug to her heart until it festered into some nice helpful hatred.
One of the other women sniffed the air, like the Beast Glatisant. ‘Long dead?’ she murmured to the girl.
‘Days, one day. I’m not sure. I left before he died, but he had the mark on him so I know it must be him. There’s no one else she would hawk round the countryside, that’s sure.’
The woman sniffed again and frowned. She was also new to the company and relied on her other senses more than the rest, being without sight. The smells emanating from the women around her would have confounded the most talented hound, so perhaps that was why she was getting no smell of corruption. She liked a bit of corruption and if the corpse was far advanced, there were rich pickings to be had; fingers, hands, even locks of hair could all be put to good use. Never mind, she told herself, if he wasn’t ready for harvesting yet, time would soon solve that problem. She had listened from a distance to the conversation between the hawk and the woman in the night. Although she hadn’t said as much in words, her voice was telling all with ears to hear that she wouldn’t be leaving his side in a hurry, given half a chance.
The fat keeper of the stones shifted her weight from one foot to another and spoke to the rest. ‘I don’t know about the rest of you, but I need to have a sit down. Shall we gather by the King Stone? It makes a nice centre for a circle.’
‘Won’t they see us?’ the young woman asked.
Another, who hadn’t spoken so far, said, ‘Cloak of invisibility.’ She rolled her eyes and clucked her tongue. She got fed up with those sisters who wouldn’t use the powers He gave them. The old one she travelled with, for example. Wouldn’t fly to save her feet, not for anything.
Her travelling companion spoke softly, the voice of reason. ‘Not everyone has your skills, my dear,’ she said. ‘Why don’t we just sit over there on that nice bank, well into the trees? Then we won’t have to worry about our cloaks slipping from our shoulders and giving away our presence.’
The blind woman had never acquired the skill of invisibility, having no way of knowing when the trick had worked, so she nodded in everyone’s general direction and held out her hand to be led through the shrubby trees to the bank. They sank down on to the moss and began to talk together in low voices,
but every now and again, the eyeless woman raised her nose and sniffed the air.
No corruption yet. But with a thrill in her heart she knew that something wicked was coming their way.
They looked like a black cloud at first, a smudge on the bright gold of the corn fields. Their spear points glinted in the sun and the little camp on the hilltop fell silent.
‘No, no, Will,’ Martin was saying, ‘that’s cut two. You want cut three now. Up, parry and . . .’ But he was scything thin air with his broadsword because William Shaxsper was standing yards away, his scimitar trailing on the ground and he was staring at Meon Hill.
The black cloud was moving down it now and Shaxsper groaned. He crossed to Sledd and Marlowe who were standing by the wagons. ‘I know that flag,’ he said. ‘It’s Lord Greville.’
‘Sir Edward Greville,’ Joyce Clopton corrected him. ‘The man has enough airs and graces as it is.’ She had recovered herself having slept and having poured out her troubles to Marlowe. She was the heiress of Clopton now and estate or not she intended to honour the name. One by one the heads came up, the women mending costumes and darning stockings, the men who had been hammering flats into place. All of them were staring at the little army reaching the valley floor below them.
‘Who are these people?’ Reginald Scot had abandoned his notebook and joined the others.
‘Let’s just say they haven’t come for our autographs,’ Marlowe told him. He glanced at Shaxsper. Perhaps the time had come to see if he could use that sword for real.
‘Kit, Master Sledd,’ Joyce hissed to them. ‘It’s me Greville wants or at least what’s in my father’s coffin. We shouldn’t have imposed, shouldn’t have come. We still have time. It’ll be half an hour before they reach us. Boscastle, harness the horses.’
‘One moment, My Lady.’ Marlowe stopped the man in his tracks. He turned to the camp, all of them watching, waiting, uncertain what was happening or what to do. ‘These are the men who stole Lady Joyce’s home,’ he said, raising his voice. ‘The home where you and I were made welcome just days ago. Sir William’s barns gave us shelter, his beds gave us rest. We drank his beer and his wine, ate his food. Some of us –’ and he glanced sidelong at Thomas and Nat – ‘enjoyed other things at Clopton.’ Only Thomas blushed. ‘Now, this jackanapes Greville has come to take Sir William’s body itself.’
