Scorpion's Nest (2012)

by Trow, M J

  Scarcely breathing, his slipped his thumb into a fold and pulled the parchment flat. He looked up at a corner of the ceiling and counted to ten. He wanted to be ready for the revelation that was now in his hand. He dropped his eyes.

  The candle was still settling in to its steady burn and he turned the parchment towards it, narrowing his eyes against the flicker. But no matter how carefully he looked and how much he concentrated, the words wouldn’t change. He couldn’t help but read aloud, if only to convince himself of what he saw written there, in Phelippes’ tiny, exquisite hand.

  ‘Let me confess that we two must be twain, although our undivided loves are one: so shall those blots that do with me remain . . .’ His voice died away and he read the rest silently to himself. Then he dropped the paper onto the tabletop and, drooping his head, massaged his temples. This must be wrong. Phelippes had broken the code, to another code, surely. How long could this chain continue, everyone spiralling round each other, more people dying, more paths leading nowhere. Suddenly, all Marlowe wanted was to be back in his room in Cambridge, with nothing more to worry about but an untranslated passage for Dr Lyler. But his eyes were drawn to the rest of the verse, and he read each line carefully, looking for a hidden meaning. Then, he reached the bottom and knew there was no meaning other than what he could see in plain sight. ‘For Sylvie,’ he read, ‘who will never be mine, but who will always be, in my heart, my wife.’

  Marlowe had made assumptions about Father Laurenticus, based on others’ views of him. A philanderer, a heart-breaker, a spy; now, to this list, he had to add a man in love. Which was the right one? This one, surely, the one who had sat, hour after solitary hour, pouring out his heart to his love, in codes culled from Marlowe’s own words. He read the lines again and knew that his lines had become greater in their retelling, no translation of old bawdiness here, just love laid bare on the paper. He refolded the parchment and slipped it into the breast of his doublet. There was someone he had to go and see, before he changed his mind.

  There was a tap at the door, and he went to open it. The lad from Aldred was there, with another parchment in his hand.

  ‘I’m sorry, Monsieur,’ he gasped. ‘I forgot this other one.’ He held out the gold coin forlornly. ‘I will understand if . . .’ Although the coin was in the flat of his palm, even so he seemed to be holding it fast.

  Marlowe ruffled his hair and was immediately sorry. It was stiff with some kind of grease. He tried to resist wiping his hand until the boy had turned his back.

  ‘It’s goose grease, Monsieur,’ the boy said. ‘My grandmamma says it is good for the chest.’

  ‘But it seems to be in your hair,’ Marlowe couldn’t help but remark.

  The boy shrugged the French shrug involving his whole body. ‘To be safe,’ he said. ‘One cannot have too much goose grease.’

  ‘Indeed not,’ Marlowe said. ‘Keep the coin, you didn’t mean to keep the note and I have it now. Au revoir.’

  ‘Merci, Monsieur,’ the lad said, already running down the corridor.

  Marlowe wiped his hand on the curtain and then opened his second note. This was from Johns. ‘Kit,’ it began, ‘I hope you don’t mind that I have translated the verse from the German. Such an ugly language for poetry, don’t you think? If you want the original, we have it here. After I had done the work, I realized that perhaps the original had a code inside the code. Kit, I know this sounds mad, but being with Phelippes so much has made me a little mad, I think. I see shadows in every corner, an assassin in every shade. I think I will go back to Cambridge soon, Harvey or no Harvey, but I will see you before I go. With my fondest wishes. Take care and God will go with you, whether you want Him to or not. M.’

  There was something in the tone of the note that made a goose step over Marlowe’s grave, with or without its grease. Something about this afternoon, begun at such leisure, reading a book in peace, had turned the world and started something in motion that no one would be able to stop. It was no good trying to think it through. It was time to let the feeling in his blood lead him, and hope that his blood would stay inside his skin.

  The sun had long since set by the time the Queen’s First Secretary took off his spectacles and closed his tired eyes. All day he had been reading correspondence, the private sort that not even his secretaries saw, not even his wife, nor young Robert, the son waiting in the wings to assume his father’s mantle of state. His hounds lay dreaming before the fire and the glass of mead was shot through with the reflected embers in the grate.

  It was then that one final letter met his gaze as he sat upright again, shaking sleep from him. He knew that crest – the golden eagles on the green field. That was the Fineaux coat of arms and he and old Walter Fineaux went back a long way. He ripped the seal and adjusted his candle to give him a better light.

  ‘My lord,’ it read. ‘Regarding Corpus Christi and the successor to Dr Norgate. May it please you that one Dr Gabriel Harvey has assumed the powers of . . .’ His voice tailed away.

  ‘Vernon!’ he roared and a distant voice answered, ‘My lord?’ A ferret of a man scuttled into his presence, bowing curtly.

  ‘Get me our best horseman,’ Burghley barked. ‘And send me Collard. I need to get a letter to John Copcott, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge. I must, it seems, use a prerogative or two.’

  Marlowe had a skill, innate rather than learned, of feeling at home in any city and knowing his way around like a native in no time. He put this down to his choirboy years in Canterbury, when he would spend more time ducking and diving round the alleyways, twittens and snickets which would lead him out of trouble with his schoolmasters and into trouble of a far more enjoyable kind, involving games of bat and ball, not five-part harmonies by Tallis, God rest his soul. So, although his journey with Mireille had been in the dark, he let his feet do the thinking and was soon outside the little, dark door in the dingy courtyard. He tapped politely and waited. No one came, so he risked pushing the door a little, to see if it was open. It creaked, but it gave on its sagging hinges, and Marlowe slipped into the room.

  There was no light at all inside, just a faint glimmer through the grimy window, but it was enough in that tiny space for Marlowe to know that he was alone. He edged along the wall to the curtained doorway that led to the other room, where Sylvie seemed to do most of her business. Mireille was more at home in the lights and bustle of the taverns in the town, happily giving her customers what they wanted against any convenient wall. Sylvie was more the choice of those who wanted privacy, no talking, no reaction or emotion, just somewhere to get some quick release as cheaply as possible. Feeling like a voyeur, he craned his neck to listen at the gap.

  The frantic, angry grunting of his previous visit was absent, but it was obvious that Sylvie was earning a crust beyond the curtain and he drew back to wait. This time there was no crashing boor of a man flying through the room, just a thin and unkempt boy, if anything younger than Sylvie herself, who crept round the tattered hanging and, seeing Marlowe lounging against the wall absently polishing the blade of his dagger on his well-clothed thigh, ran for the door, wrenched it open and flew across the courtyard as though the hounds of Hell were at his heels.

  Marlowe gave the girl a moment to collect herself, then called her name, softly. ‘Sylvie?’

  ‘Moment, Monsieur,’ she called back, not happily, but with more spirit than he had heard in her voice before. As she came into the room, her face fell. ‘Oh, it’s you. Are you looking for Mireille?’

  ‘Not today, Sylvie. I came looking for you.’ He pointed vaguely at the door. ‘A friend of yours?’

  She laughed, flatly. ‘No, bless him. He has come here every night for the last three weeks. This was the first time I got him to even unlace his britches. One of these days he will get so far as to lose his precious virginity. He will find it is not all it is cracked up to be.’

  ‘Virginity, or the losing of it?’ Marlowe was curious to find out how this strange girl ticked along. When Mireille was arou
nd, everyone else just seemed to become background noise.

  ‘Either.’ She shrugged. ‘Both. But how can I help you, Monsieur?’

  ‘For once, I think I am here to help you. Can we have some light in here?’

  ‘Not in here,’ she said with a smile. ‘A light in this room only means one thing: open for business. Perhaps you would like to go elsewhere? There are taverns . . .’

  ‘No, this is something private,’ he said. He had no intention of reading a love poem to her in the noise of even the quietest inn. He had made a rough translation of it in his head and wondered how much of the man Laurenticus could remain; even lines written from the heart lose a lot when translated into and out of code and then through two more languages to the ear of the intended recipient. But it was something that had to be done.

  ‘Come into the back room, then,’ she said. ‘It is quite tidy, nothing to offend you. My last client, as you saw, wasn’t one to wrinkle the sheets. Come.’ She crooked a finger and pulled the curtain to one side.

  Whatever Marlowe had been expecting, it wasn’t this austere little cell. There was just a bed, neatly made, a table with a jug and a bowl on it, half full of water. A towel was neatly folded alongside. ‘Do you live here?’ he asked, looking round.

  ‘No. Mireille and I share a room across the courtyard. We rent this for . . . business. It works better this way, especially when the weather is bad. We can use both places. Even Mireille comes inside when it snows.’ She smiled. ‘Don’t get me wrong when I criticize Mireille, Monsieur. I love her like a sister, but we don’t have much in common, other than this.’

  Laurenticus seemed to hover between them like a ghost. Marlowe could almost see him, a little vague as to face, but otherwise he had the measure of the man, he thought. Big, quick to temper and also, as it turned out, to love. Full of appetites which the English College had failed to stifle. Even his spying had taken second place to his passion for this little, sad girl.

  As if she could read his mind, she spoke. ‘So, what do you have to tell me, Monsieur? Time is money, you know, in my line of work.’

  Marlowe took out a gold coin and put it on the table. ‘Take the rest of the night off,’ he said. ‘Consider it a gift from Father Laurenticus.’

  She flinched, but said nothing.

  ‘Do you have a candle? I think I can remember what I need to tell you, but it will help if I have a light.’

  She looked at him oddly, then dipped through the curtain and came back with a stump of candle, with many dribbles and very trimmed as to wick. This was a candle that was lit often and for short periods. She lit it with a practised hand, striking the flint just the once. She handed it to him.

  ‘Make yourself comfortable, Sylvie,’ he said. ‘I am going to read something to you. It’s only short, don’t worry.’

  Obediently, like a child, she lay on the bed, on her side, with her head in the crook of her arm. In the candlelight, her eyes glowed as she looked at him.

  He took the paper from his doublet and unfolded it. Resting it in his lap to jog his memory, he began. ‘Let me confess that we two must be twain,’ he said, haltingly in French, ‘although our undivided loves are one: so shall those blots that do with me remain, without thy help by me be borne alone.’ He glanced at her and saw that her eyes had closed. A silver trail led down across her cheek to the corner of her mouth, but she made no move to wipe the tear away. ‘In our two loves there is but one respect,’ he continued, ‘though in our lives a separable spite, which though it alter not love’s sole effect, yet doth it steal sweet hours from love’s delight.’

  She suddenly sat up, dashing away the tears with the back of her hand. ‘Did he write this for me?’ she asked, her voice thick and dry.

  ‘Yes, Sylvie,’ he said, gently. ‘Yes, he did. He sat day by day and wrote you poetry, in code, because he couldn’t say what he felt in his heart.’

  ‘You weren’t there,’ she said, smiling through her tears. ‘You don’t know what he said to me, in the dark. No one does, and no one will. If there is more, Monsieur, don’t read it to me. Take the poem, read it to others if you will. And if you want to, tell them it was written by a man who loved a woman and who had to leave her, by someone else’s fault, not his.’ She looked around her with big eyes. ‘He has gone at last. He has been here, you know, since that night. I have been so angry with him for leaving me, so guilty that I ran away as he was dying and left him alone, but I have let him go now.’ She looked at Marlowe, sitting there in the candlelight, the paper on his knee. ‘Thank you, Monsieur.’

  ‘Are you sure . . .?’ He held up the paper.

  ‘No. I have heard enough. You have taken a weight from me. I can see the whole thing clearly now, for the first time since it happened. As the knife went home, he –’ she swallowed hard, and grabbed a handful of bedding as though to steady herself – ‘he grabbed at me. He was dying. I didn’t know. I was frightened, so I jumped up and ran, past a man on the gallery outside. He frightened me. His face . . .’

  Marlowe was on his knees at her side in an instant. ‘You saw his face?’

  ‘I . . . think so.’

  ‘How can you think so?’ he almost shouted. ‘You either saw it, or you didn’t.’

  ‘It was in deep shadow. But if I saw it again, I would know it, I’m sure.’

  He leaned forward and held her face between his hands. ‘Sylvie,’ he said, ‘you are a miracle. I may need you to help me later. Will you do that?’

  ‘If I can,’ she said.

  He leaned forward and kissed her sweetly, tasting the salt of her tears. ‘Take care, Sylvie,’ he said. ‘I think Father Laurenticus would have wanted me to tell you that.’

  And he was gone.

  SIXTEEN

  Philip Henslowe was feeling very pleased with himself. He already ran three bear-pits where the great and good of Southwark paid ridiculous money to watch dogs torn apart by the black-furred beasts from the forests of Russia; or to watch the ravenous curs sink their teeth into the animals’ noble hides – it could all turn on the random slash of a claw. And he also made a modest return collecting rents from the Winchester geese who sold their charms all along the South Bank.

  Now, fortune had favoured Henslowe further. He and his partner, John Cholmley, grocer, had just built a theatre, The Rose, and the smell of newly planed timbers and damp wattle was still in his nostrils that Tuesday morning as the post boy thudded up the stairs to Henslowe’s solar.

  ‘Master Henslowe?’ the lad asked, breath in fist.

  ‘Yes.’ Henslowe was poring over his latest play returns.

  ‘Master Philip Henslowe, the dyer?’

  ‘Yes.’ The man was irritated already. Little things like a reminder of his origins took the gilt off his profits.

  ‘Are you the bloke what owns the Rose?’

  ‘For God’s sake, man,’ Henslowe thundered. ‘Yes, I am. Why all these questions?’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’ The lad rummaged in his purse. ‘But I’ve rid all the way from Cambridge and was told to give this to no one but that Philip Henslowe. You can’t be too careful in my profession.’

  ‘Indeed not.’ Henslowe took the letter from the lad’s hand. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘It’s a letter,’ the lad said, privately wondering what sort of people were running London’s theatres these days.

  Henslowe scowled at him. The post boy wasn’t to know that dyers-turned-theatre-impresarios didn’t suffer fools gladly, if at all.

  ‘From Master Thomas Fineaux,’ the boy said. ‘See, there’s his crest on the seal. It’s on the letterhead too . . .’ His voice tailed away. ‘It’s three eagles on a field of verte, if my heraldry serves me right. Only, I’ve got a bit of a gift for heraldry, if I say it myself.’

  ‘Have you?’ Henslowe smiled. ‘A pity you haven’t got much of a gift for delivering letters. Get out.’

  The lad was shocked. ‘Er . . . it is customary for the recipient of a letter to give some sort of remuneration, sir,’
he said.

  Henslowe looked at him. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘How remiss of me. Have you heard of Edward Alleyn, the actor?’

  ‘No,’ said the post boy.

  ‘Oh dear.’ Henslowe looked glum on the actor’s behalf. ‘He’ll be prostrate to hear that. Anyway, to cut a very long prologue short, he’s the man who handles my petty cash and he’ll see you right. Good morning.’

  ‘Er . . . thank you, sir, but where will I find Master Alleyn?’

  ‘Let’s see.’ Henslowe crossed the narrow room and peered through the wobbly panes to catch a glimpse of the pale sun. ‘It must be about eleven of the clock. You’ll probably find him in the Marshalsea about now.’

  ‘The Marshalsea?’ the lad repeated. ‘Isn’t that a prison?’

  ‘Is it?’ Henslowe asked. ‘I never enquire too closely about the private lives of my actors. It doesn’t pay. Any more than I do. So –’ he bundled the boy towards the door – ‘if it’s remuneration you’re after, Alleyn’s your man. If finding him is too much trouble, well, there it is. Life’s a bitch and then you die –’ he crossed himself – ‘saving the Almighty’s presence, of course. Can you see yourself out?’ The lad found himself outside on the landing, the door firmly slammed in his face.

  Henslowe read the letter. The lad was right. The arms of the Fineaux family were stamped firmly across the top of the page and in a spidery scrawl beneath were the words, ‘A play called Tamburlaine the Great may be on its way to you, Master Henslowe, and its author purports to be one Robert Greene of St John’s College. Be assured this is a lie. The play is brilliant but its real author is . . .’

  ‘Christopher Marlowe,’ a voice murmured in Henslowe’s ear.

  The theatre manager jumped visibly and turned savagely to the man behind him. ‘God damn you, Ned Alleyn, do you always read other people’s letters over their shoulders?’