Scorpion's Nest (2012)

by Trow, M J

  ‘Let’s not wish that,’ Marlowe said. ‘If the Jesuits leave England, what hope is there for any of us? I put the same question to Anthony Babington before I left.’

  ‘Anthony Babington?’ Salter asked. ‘Why does that name sound familiar?’

  ‘He stood trial with other friends of mine for carrying letters to the Queen of Scots. Walsingham had him hanged, drawn and quartered.’

  Salter spat copiously onto Marlowe’s floor. ‘May he rot in Hell, that one,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure he will. But in the meantime, I have more pressing matters. Someone is targeting members of the English College, killing them, one by one. There is no pattern to it, except that they were all within its walls. The three victims scarcely knew each other, as far as it is possible to be strangers in such a closed community as this. The methods are not the same – in my small experience, a strangler is always a strangler, a knife man swears by his blade. I have to find who is behind these crimes, Master Salter. Will you help?’

  ‘Root out a Puritan?’ Salter asked. ‘My hand on it,’ he continued, and he shook Marlowe’s hand warmly. In a second, the projectioner was on his feet, his finger to his lips. He crossed the room in a single stride and wrenched open the door. Antoinette the maid stood there, broom and cloths in hand, gasping at the sudden movement.

  ‘Pardon, Monsieur,’ she said with a bob. ‘I can come back.’

  ‘No, no,’ Marlowe said, smiling. ‘Master Salter was just going. Weren’t you, Master Salter?’

  ‘Oh, absolutely, yes indeed.’ The Yorkshireman finished his wine and patted Marlowe’s shoulder. ‘Here’s to rooting out Puritans,’ he whispered and he clattered off down the passageway.

  Marlowe watched him go and closed the door behind Antoinette. The woman trembled as she ferreted around with her feather duster.

  ‘Antoinette.’ He was standing with his back to the door and she knew there was no way out. ‘We need to talk.’

  She ignored him at first, not making eye contact, finding something fascinating in every nook and cranny of the room and rubbing it feverishly with her cloth.

  ‘Antoinette . . .’ he repeated.

  ‘I can’t,’ she suddenly blurted out, turning to him with a red face and trembling lip. ‘I promised Dr Skelton.’

  Marlowe took the little minion by her shoulders and sat her down on the bed. He took the feather duster from her, then the cloths and looked deep into her eyes. ‘What?’ he asked her. ‘What did you promise Dr Skelton?’

  ‘That I wouldn’t tell a soul what I know, Monsieur. Not a soul. For the sake of my own soul. Not a word. I have already said much too much.’

  ‘Your own soul?’ Marlowe frowned. ‘What do you mean, Antoinette?’

  She looked frantically around the room. Laurenticus’ room. And there was no escape. ‘Dr Skelton,’ she whispered. ‘He said the Lord’s wrath would be visited on me if I told.’

  Marlowe put a comforting arm around the terrified woman, as a son might squeeze his mother. ‘He was thinking of the College’s reputation, Antoinette,’ he said. ‘It’s his job. He didn’t want you talking to the wrong people. He didn’t mean me.’

  ‘But you . . . you’re an Englishman, Monsieur.’

  Marlowe laughed. ‘Almost to be expected in the English College, surely? Who do you take me for, Antoinette? Beelzebub? Asmodeus? Lucifer himself?’

  She crossed herself and, since Marlowe had used the names of three demons, did it twice more. He took those shaking hands and held them together in an attitude of prayer, clasped between his own. ‘I am ready to hear your confession, daughter,’ he said. ‘Place your burden on the Lord.’

  ‘Confession?’ she repeated, staring into his dark eyes. ‘You mean, you’re . . .?’

  ‘A priest? Of course,’ Marlowe lied smoothly. ‘Why else do you think I’m here?’

  Antoinette hesitated, her eyes swivelling wildly from side to side. She saw again the blood on the coverlet, the one they sat on now, washed clean of crimson. She saw the sprays of blood on the wall, the ones she herself had washed and scrubbed away. She saw the dead man sprawled on his pillow, his throat another mouth gaping open. But this man didn’t look like a priest. He was young and handsome, though that was no bar to the priesthood, as many a village maiden had discovered over many a long century. But he didn’t have the air about him . . . she couldn’t put her finger on it. She made her decision.

  ‘I . . . I will speak to my God myself,’ she said at last. It didn’t sound rehearsed, but it took Marlowe aback.

  ‘My child,’ he said, ‘that is the way of the Lutherans. Solo fide. By faith alone. It is not the way of our mother church.’

  She looked at him as if transfixed, her lip trembling again, her whole body cold though beads of sweat stood out on her forehead. She wrenched her hands free and fumbled in her placket. Out came a crumpled piece of parchment and there was blood dried brown on one corner.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked her.

  ‘I found it, Father,’ she said, on a sob, ‘bless me, for I have sinned,’ and she fell into his lap, crying helplessly. He lifted up her head and made the sign of the cross over her, muttering the old Latin incantation he had known as a child. Then he took a corner of her gown and gently wiped her eyes.

  ‘Where did you find it?’ he asked her.

  ‘There, Father –’ she flung her left arm behind her in the direction of the bed – ‘on the morning I found poor Father Laurenticus. It was in his hand. I don’t know why I picked it up. Why I touched it. I shouldn’t have. God forgive me. I shouldn’t have.’ She held his hand tightly. ‘Is it a curse, Father? Is it a curse, written down to hurt Father Laurenticus?’

  ‘No, no,’ Marlowe said, patting her white knuckles with his free hand. ‘Of course it isn’t. It wasn’t magic that killed Father Laurenticus. Only men wield knives. And God has forgiven you, if you needed forgiveness.’ He slipped the parchment into his doublet. ‘Now, wipe your eyes or you will be late with your work.’

  She jumped to her feet, grabbing a cloth to show her willingness to sweep the dust behind the door. ‘There was something else . . .’ She sniffed, feeling much better now that she had confessed and found absolution. ‘There was a ring.’

  ‘Oh?’ Marlowe raised an eyebrow. Perhaps he had blessed her prematurely.

  ‘I didn’t take it, Father,’ she said quickly. ‘I didn’t even touch it.’

  ‘And where was the ring, Antoinette?’

  ‘There, Father.’ She pointed to the bed again.

  ‘On the right side?’ he checked. ‘Away from the body?’

  She nodded.

  ‘It was nothing,’ he said. ‘A meaningless trinket.’

  ‘Oh, but it was valuable, Father,’ she told him. ‘That’s why I didn’t touch it. A man’s ring, it was, gold with a funny design.’

  ‘A man’s ring?’ Marlowe frowned. ‘Tell me, Antoinette, this design. What did it look like?’

  ‘I don’t know, Father. It had . . . it was an eagle on one side. And a key, I think it was, on the other.’

  Marlowe crossed to his table. He dipped the quill into the ink and sketched quickly on the parchment that lay there. He showed what he had done to the maid. ‘Like this, Antoinette?’ he asked. ‘Did the ring look like this?’

  William Allen was dining in his private quarters that night and Gerald Skelton was with him. Marlowe batted the little monk at his door aside and crashed into the solar.

  ‘What the devil . . .?’ Skelton was on his feet, the knife he was using on his bread suddenly a dagger in his hand.

  ‘It’s all right, Gerald,’ Allen said. ‘You see how I am fussed over, Dominus Marlowe?’ And he patted Skelton’s sleeve to make him sit down again. ‘Wine? Cheese?’

  ‘Thank you, Master, no.’ Marlowe stood across the laden table. ‘Forgive this intrusion, but I must have words with you.’

  ‘And I take it they can’t wait?’ Allen cut himself another chunk of bread.

  �
�I’m afraid not. And this is private, Master.’ Marlowe nodded in Skelton’s direction.

  ‘If I haven’t made this clear already,’ Allen said, ‘I am doing so now. Gerald is my right arm in this College. Talk to the whole man.’

  ‘Very well,’ Marlowe said and threw his rough sketch across the table.

  ‘What’s this?’ Allen asked, turning it this way and that.

  ‘I was hoping you would tell me,’ Marlowe said. No one had asked him to sit and he felt like a naughty scholar again on the Persian carpet in old Dr Norgate’s study.

  ‘Where did you get this?’ Skelton asked, narrowing his eyes.

  ‘I drew it,’ Marlowe told him, ‘from a description given to me.’

  ‘By whom?’ Allen wanted to know.

  ‘That damned maid!’ Skelton shouted.

  ‘Maid?’ Marlowe was at his most convincing when he played the idiot. ‘I know nothing of any maid. I got this from a strumpet.’ Marlowe folded his arms to emphasize what he was about to say. ‘A strumpet who was lying with Father Laurenticus on the night he died.’

  The silence in the room was almost deafening.

  ‘This strumpet.’ Skelton was the first to break it. ‘Does she have a name?’

  ‘I expect so,’ Marlowe said. ‘I didn’t ask her. The point is, Doctors, you have not been honest with me.’

  ‘You’ll forgive us.’ Allen put his goblet down and teased a morsel of cheese around his teeth. ‘But in your case, Marlowe, it’s rather a case of pots and kettles, isn’t it?’

  ‘You know I have the writ of His Holiness,’ Marlowe said, ‘and yet you didn’t tell me of Laurenticus’ . . . shall we say, extra-curricular activities.’

  Allen and Skelton exchanged glances. ‘All right,’ the Master said, as if his mind were suddenly made up. ‘You’re right. When we found Laurenticus the morning after he died, it was clear to us that there had been someone in bed with him. He was a man, after all, as we all are. We all struggle . . .’

  ‘What about the ring?’ Marlowe asked.

  ‘It was on the bed,’ Skelton said. ‘Presumably the strumpet’s. We don’t know what became of her. Or how she could get in and out of the College with no one seeing her.’

  ‘You have at least confirmed one thing for us, Dominus Marlowe,’ Allen said, sitting back in his chair and resting his hands together calmly. ‘I for one, and I think Gerald also, had wondered who Laurenticus’ bedfellow might be. Gerald thought of an outsider at once; I was more inclined to wonder whether it was a member of the kitchen or household staff. Or, perhaps . . .’ He left a silence, hanging in the air.

  Skelton looked at him askance. ‘I told you Laurenticus did not have that kind of appetite, did I not?’ he asked, triumphantly. ‘Now we know for certain. But it still does beg the question, how did she get in and out?’

  ‘Any one of a dozen ways,’ Marlowe said. ‘Your security is pretty lax, Bursar, considering how many secrets this place keeps. And besides, the ring is not hers.’

  ‘Not?’ Allen raised his head.

  ‘It was a man’s ring, she said,’ Marlowe told him. ‘Heavy and gold. That –’ he pointed at the sketch – ‘was worked on it.’

  Skelton shrugged. ‘So, what are you saying, Marlowe? That Father Laurenticus, as well as his weakness for women, wore expensive jewellery? So what? Hair shirts belong to the saints. We are ordinary men.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Marlowe nodded grimly. ‘But that is no ordinary ring.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Allen asked him.

  ‘The double eagle,’ Marlowe said, ‘and the keys of St Peter. I’m surprised they haven’t dropped that by now. Symbol of Rome and all.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Skelton asked.

  ‘The eagle and key, Dr Skelton,’ Marlowe said, ‘is the coat of arms of Geneva, as I’m sure you know.’

  Allen and Skelton looked at each other.

  ‘Geneva, gentlemen –’ he felt as though he should spell it out – ‘is the Protestant Rome. That Machiavel Calvin stole it, you will recall, some years ago. He banned our church, tore up our tracts, tortured our brethren. So, I have to ask, how did Father Laurenticus come by this little trinket – “a present from Geneva” was it? I don’t think so.’

  ‘It must have belonged to the strumpet,’ Allen persisted and looked at Skelton for backing. But the Bursar looked troubled. ‘Cat got your tongue, Gerald?’ he snapped.

  ‘Master . . .’ Skelton was trying to formulate the words, ‘Dominus Marlowe is from the Curia.’

  Allen scowled at them both. His messenger had not returned from Rome yet and there was no definitive proof who he was. Even so, things were getting out of hand at the English College and something had to be done. ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘Gerald and I had our suspicions about Laurenticus. Had them for some time, in fact.’

  ‘Suspicions?’ Marlowe helped himself, unbidden, to a chair.

  Allen continued to look at Marlowe, watching for a sign, anything that might give him a clue as to how far he could trust this man. ‘Tell him, Gerald.’

  ‘For some time,’ the Bursar said, ‘snippets of information have been leaked from the College. Some of it is careless talk – you always get that. But some of it . . .’

  ‘Some of it is code,’ Allen said, finishing the sentence for him, ‘as from a projectioner to his people on the outside. Gerald here thought it was me, didn’t you, Gerald?’

  The Bursar looked outraged. ‘Certainly not, Master, I . . .’

  But Allen was chuckling, raising his hand. ‘Just joking, my old friend. Laurenticus’ ring is not proof, of course, but as soon as I saw it, I knew.’

  ‘And is that why he died?’ Marlowe asked. ‘The natural justice meted out to a projectioner – and a traitor to God’s word?’

  ‘The thought had occurred,’ Allen said, nodding. ‘The Protestants would say we’re all fanatics here. What do they call us in Richmond and Placentia? The nest of scorpions? And don’t scorpions kill their own?’

  ‘I’d be the first to share your view, Marlowe,’ Skelton said, ‘on security, I mean. Father Tobias is a little long in the tooth to be ever-vigilant and there are ways in and out other than the main gate.’

  ‘And out there . . .’ Marlowe was finishing the man’s train of thought. ‘In Rheims there are any number of Catholic zealots who would do God’s bidding at the drop of a piccadill.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Allen mused. ‘But what of the others?’

  ‘Master!’ Skelton warned.

  ‘It’s too late now, Gerald. The man knows. This lad Brooke; didn’t you say he was a thief?’

  Skelton shrugged. ‘Dr Shaw thinks he has been helping himself to books, yes; selling them to the town’s stationers.’

  ‘What if it’s more than that?’ Allen asked.

  ‘I don’t follow,’ Skelton said.

  Marlowe helped him out. ‘What if it wasn’t the books themselves?’

  ‘Go on,’ Allen said.

  ‘What if there was something in the books? A code, perhaps, that Brooke smuggled out.’

  ‘My God,’ Skelton muttered.

  ‘And there was Charles of Westley Waterless,’ Marlowe added.

  ‘Ah, Charles Russell.’ Allen checked him with a raised hand. ‘Now that was just a tragic, tragic case, Marlowe. I blame myself for not having seen the depths of his despair. The boy was disturbed and took his own life. We shouldn’t really have allowed him to be added to the crypt.’

  ‘The crypt?’ Marlowe played the innocent.

  Skelton fidgeted. ‘Our dead,’ he said. ‘Those who pass over in the College. The Douai martyrs. They are all down there. Beneath the east wing.’

  ‘There can’t be many, surely?’ Marlowe said. ‘You haven’t been here very long. How many deaths have there been?’

  ‘No, no,’ Skelton said. ‘We brought our dead with us when we left Douai. We couldn’t leave them behind and all alone.’

  ‘I see.’ Marlowe tried to keep the surprise out of his voice.
Even though he had already seen the serried ranks of the dead, it still struck him as a very odd thing to do. ‘I would like to see them,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’ Allen asked him.

  ‘Dead men sometimes tell tales,’ the projectioner explained. ‘If you listen carefully enough.’

  ‘Master,’ Skelton said. ‘I really don’t think . . .’

  ‘What harm can there be?’ Allen said suddenly, his mind made up. ‘Gerald, take Dominus Marlowe down, will you? Any light he can shed . . .’

  They heard the Watch calling beyond the College walls as they crossed the quad, its stones gleaming silver in the moon. The place was asleep now except for the few revellers Marlowe guessed were still out, breaking the Master’s curfew and risking the Master’s wrath. One thing was certain: Martin Camb would not be among them. He would be lying in his bed with a ghost for company. And it was that ghost that Marlowe was looking for now. Not for the first time he pondered the questions – were there such things as ghosts? Did they haunt their last abode, forever trapped in the four walls where they died? Or did they hover, roaring their silent vow of vengeance, above their earthly corpses as they rotted?

  He followed Skelton down the narrow, dark passages he had found before when Solomon Aldred had told him of the crypt. Skelton eased open the iron-ringed door and both men felt the cold, clammy blast of dead air hit them. Only a solitary blue candle lit their way as they passed the rows of bodies. Skelton crossed himself and kissed the end of the stole around his neck. The rows of bodies were held upright in their niches by bolts of iron that here, in the damp below ground, were already beginning to rust. They looked at the intruders through sunken, sightless eyes, as though wondering who it was who had come to disturb their rest. The skulls lolled to left and right where the sinews of the neck had long ago given up the uneven struggle to keep them upright. It gave them all a rather pensive air, as though they had relaxed as they pondered on deep and secret things which they only knew now they were dead.

  ‘Edmund Brooke,’ Skelton murmured, even his soft voice a violation in that great silence. The boy was covered in a shroud from neck to foot and his skin was already grey under the lifeless thatch of hair. Marlowe gazed at the face again, the face that had already told him all he could learn. The face of a projectioner? An intelligencer? A thief? Or just a luckless scholar, playing jack-the-lad in a world too big for him?