by M. J. Trow
A few furtive thumbs hooked inside clenched fists.
‘Porte your pike!’
The pikes came up to the vertical and everyone waited. Apart from the snorting of the horses, there was silence on St George’s Down.
‘Handle your pike!’
The pikes fell to the diagonal, men leaning in and gripping their staves with both hands.
‘Advance your pike!’
The pikes probed forward, like a bristling hedgehog.
‘And … have a care!’
The pikes came up and everyone relaxed.
‘Well, Henry?’ Carey turned to the man beside him. ‘What do you think?’
‘You’re the expert, George,’ Meux said. ‘I’d say it needs work.’
‘Robert?’ Carey looked across to Dillington.
‘It’s good to see our local lads aren’t much slower than the Essex boys,’ he said. ‘But all in all …’
‘Yes, I know.’ Carey was irritated. For weeks now he had been working with pikemen, demilancers, calivermen and musketeers. The Essex lads were sloppy, but the Hampshire boys two weeks ago were no better. His eyes blazed as he looked around the field, the drummers waiting for the word of command. His eyes fell on his nephew a hundred times removed.
‘Remind me again, Martin,’ he said. ‘You are here because …?’
‘It’s a tedious job, George,’ the man said, as much under his breath as possible. ‘But somebody has to count the pennies. In a minute you’re going to have artillery practice, aren’t you? Get the Shott moving?’
‘Of course,’ Carey said. ‘Can’t have a field day without guns.’
‘Well, guns cost, George,’ Martin said. ‘And so does roundshot. I have to keep accounts.’
Martin Carey had had a special saddle made, one with a wooden lectern that swung across the pommel. It had an inkwell, a quill and a ledger. George Carey knew he should be impressed. But he was not. He sighed. ‘You’re a sad, sad man,’ he said. ‘Ah.’ He caught sight of a horseman galloping across the front of the Essex Bands. ‘Watch carefully in the next few minutes, gentlemen. I believe I have some entertainment for you – Martin, you brought the candles?’
‘Yes,’ the comptroller said. ‘Here in my saddlebag; but I don’t see …’
‘No, of course not.’ Carey beamed. ‘That’s why I’m Governor and Captain-General of the Wight and you are an accountant. Master Compton,’ he called to the rider, ‘good of you to call.’
Compton reined in his lathered horse and saluted. ‘Sorry, Sir George,’ he said, ‘I got a little delayed, I’m afraid.’ He suddenly smelled the Governor’s wife on him, the scent of civet, and turned a little pale. Looking down, he saw a long dark hair on his cuff and felt his breath catch in his throat. He dropped his hands and held the reins low, hiding the tell-tale filament.
‘You see, gentlemen,’ Carey beamed, returning Compton’s salute, ‘a centoner who knows how to behave. Splendid.’ His smile suddenly vanished and he scanned the line of his levy standing at ease behind the band. ‘Sergeant Wilson, if you please.’
Three men broke from the ranks, their pikes passed to others and they stood to attention before the Governor.
‘Dismount, sir,’ Carey said to Compton.
The man was a little surprised by the order but he obeyed and someone took the animal’s bridle, leading it away. Carey eased himself in the saddle. For all his martial bearing, his thigh boots were agony and his gorget much too tight. ‘Tell me about yourself, Matthew,’ he said, as though conducting an interview.
‘Sir George?’ Compton frowned. Had the man gone mad? Meux and Dillington were equally confused and even Martin Carey had no idea where this was going.
‘Humour me.’ Carey smiled.
‘Er … well, I was born in the County of Middlesex and attended John Lyon’s new school in Harrow …’
‘And then?’
‘Well, I am of private means, Sir George. A gentleman.’
Carey snorted. ‘You may be of private means, sir, but you are no gentleman.’
Compton wanted the ground to swallow him up. Bet had been right. George Carey did know and now he was to have his revenge in the most public and humiliating way possible. He felt the long, dark hair stream from his cuff in the wind on the Down’s top, flying like a pennon, like a lady’s favour.
The Governor leaned forward over his horse’s neck. ‘You are a lawyer, sir,’ he said as though the words were choking him. ‘Specifically, a Bencher of Lincoln’s Inn.’ He sat upright again and looked down his nose at the man before him. ‘My views on lawyers are well known,’ he shouted. ‘I will not tolerate a lawyer on my Island. They are crawlers, hypocrites, liars and parasites.’ He looked at the speechless Compton. ‘Did you think you could fool me, sir? Gentlemen!’
The two pikemen dashed forward and pinioned Compton’s arms. The sergeant whipped the man’s sword from his scabbard and broke it over his knee. Martin Carey shook his head. That weapon would have paid for two dozen calivers and the matches to go with them.
Compton found his voice, the one he used, not in bed with Bet Carey, but across the floor of a London courtroom. ‘This is an outrage!’ he shouted.
‘It is,’ Carey agreed, ‘but I have the solution.’ He clicked his fingers and the sergeant collected six candles from the Governor’s comptroller. He quickly cut the loops of Compton’s Venetians and tied their dangling ends to the wicks. Then he collected a small bell from a pikeman’s satchel and hung it on a rope around the lawyer’s neck.
‘Ready, sir,’ he said.
Carey was smirking. So were most of the men in the ranks and the musicians. The Governor spoke to them. ‘For the rest of the day, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘you will run a foot race, in full pack, to test your mettle. You will accompany this … gentleman … to the quay. And there you will put him on a boat. If the boat takes him to the mainland, all well and good. He can practise his black arts over there. If not, and he drifts with the tide … who knows but that he can offer his services to the Armada of Spain.’
There were hoots of laughter and the sergeant lit the tapers that smouldered and spat, dripping hot wax on to Compton’s boots. Carey leaned to the man as the pikemen held him fast. ‘Bell, book and candle, Master Lawyer,’ he hissed, ‘the way we drive out evil hereabouts. The bell will tinkle round your neck all the way into the Solent. The candles will roast your balls if you’re not careful. And as for the book; I’ve just thrown it at you!’
The band struck up a merry tune and the sergeant led the way, the smouldering, clanging Compton being dragged behind him. All the way to the quay, dogs barked and children spat. This was better than a holiday and all thanks to good old George Carey.
When he had ridden away to make sure his orders were carried out and the field day had descended into a leaping, laughing rabble on a picnic, Henry Meux still sat his horse alongside Robert Dillington. They watched a bewildered Martin Carey trot after his kinsman. ‘Something will have to be done about George, Robert,’ Meux said.
‘You don’t like lawyers any more than he does,’ Dillington reminded him.
‘That has nothing to do with it. The man thinks he’s God rather than the Queen’s servant as we all are. Today, it’s Compton. Tomorrow, who knows? You? Me? Something will have to be done.’
‘Well, it isn’t likely to be me,’ Dillington said, rather on his dignity.
‘How can you be so sure?’ Meux asked.
‘I am neither a lawyer nor am I making him wear the horns.’
Meux turned in the saddle and stared at the man. ‘You mean … Compton and Bet?’
‘Has Carey another wife?’ Dillington asked archly. The man could gossip for England. And often did.
‘No … but … Compton?’ Meux was scandalized.
Dillington looked after the laughing mob that was accompanying Compton on his long journey to the quay. ‘I would say the women find him attractive enough,’ he said. ‘He seems to be quite well set up, as far as a man ca
n judge.’
Meux was lost in thought.
Dillington, that most perspicacious and tenacious of gossips, being a man, sensed a story in the air. ‘So,’ he probed. ‘Tomorrow, as you say. It could be you or me.’
Meux tapped his heels on his horse’s flanks and rode away.
Dillington watched him go through lidded eyes, still as a lizard on a wall. This might come in useful. He would bide his time.
‘You must tell me all about Christopher Marlowe.’ Cecily Meux was at her drawn-thread work but her mind was not on the job in hand. She was known for her delicate reticella lace and the rumour ran that the Queen herself wore Cecily’s trimmings on her nightgown, but she could never do her best work when Bet Carey was visiting – her stories were not conducive to accurate weaving.
‘Well, you’ve danced with him, Cecily.’ Bet Carey’s fingers flew over the cloth. Her work was simpler than Cecily’s, whipping some edging to something filmy that Cecily would not even recognize, let alone wear.
‘Well,’ Cecily’s eyes shone brightly. ‘He cuts quite a dash, doesn’t he? And he has the legs for it.’ She blushed, as Cecily always did when more risqué ideas entered her otherwise empty head.
‘I’m more interested in codpieces,’ Bet said, smiling wide-eyed as though discussing the weather.
‘Bet Carey!’ Cecily scolded her, but a little shiver ran up her back. Her Henry had long ago lost all interest in that sort of thing and she hardly liked to bother him, what with the cares of running Kingston and now this wretched Spanish business. After all, he was a centoner in the Militia and a man could not be everywhere at once. But Bet, now … Bet was different. She and George went to the court – in London, that is – and they knew everybody. The last time Bet had been, she had danced with the gorgeous Henry Wriothesley, the second Earl of Southampton, and he had whispered things in her ear that even Bet could not repeat. Not even to Cecily.
‘And the man’s a poet. They say he was called Machiavel at Cambridge and has had dark dealings with Dr Dee.’
‘Yes,’ Bet mused, staring for a while into the middle distance. ‘I would imagine Master Marlowe has many dark dealings.’ She winked at her friend. ‘One to watch.’
‘And talking of watching.’ Cecily, feather-headed as ever, had changed tack. ‘What is the mystery of Walter Hunnybun?’
Bet’s face hardened. ‘There’s no mystery, Cecily; he’s dead.’
‘Yes, of course,’ her friend gabbled. ‘But murdered, they say. Did you have a look at him?’
‘A look at him?’ Bet looked askance. She would rather remember the man when he was alive, riding her in the bedroom of his farmhouse. What he lacked in elegant technique he made up for in stamina and enthusiasm. She had no interest in death. Unless of course …
‘Well,’ Cecily went on, ‘I mean, he was laid out in your chapel, wasn’t he? Who could have done such a terrible thing?’
But Bet had no time to speculate because the dogs were suddenly barking and there was the clatter of hoofs in the courtyard outside. Servants were scurrying in all directions.
‘That’ll be Henry.’ Cecily put her needlework down. ‘He’s been out at his war games all day, Bet, with that husband of yours. I warn you, he’ll be in a foul mood.’
EIGHT
Tom Sledd was sitting on the wall of Master Sackerson’s Bear Pit, throwing his breakfast leftovers to the great animal, who lay on his back, all four paws in the air. Were it not for the lack of an enormous ball of wool, he could have been a kitten lying there. A stale bread roll hit him on the nose and suddenly, there was no kitten, just a moth-eaten old bear with one tooth clinging resolutely in its gum. The growl was low in his throat and shook the wall, vibrating up Tom’s leg and into his bowel.
‘Sorry, Master S,’ Tom said, and threw a ham hock with some shreds of meat still clinging. His Johanna was a dear girl but cooking was not one of her talents. Master Sackerson rolled over and mumbled on the bone, licking into the end for the marrow.
Tom sighed and rested his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands. In a minute, he would have to go into the theatre and start trying to wring a performance out of the few actors who remained. Alleyn had stormed off in a huff and was holed up in the grand house of an even grander lady in Greenwich, at least until her husband came back. Burbage, given the lead in Alleyn’s absence, had taken umbrage and had also stormed off in a huff, flinging over his shoulder comments along the lines that he would be damned if he was so desperate as to take Ned Alleyn’s leavings. Shaxsper alone remained, but, losing more hair by the day, had decided that he was a playwright, not a player, and was skulking in corners with an inky face where he kept sucking the wrong end of his quill. Tom Sledd really did not want to go back inside.
‘Master Sledd?’ The voice at his shoulder made him jump and he turned on the newcomer, glad to have someone to shout at.
‘What in the name of God do you think you’re doing, idiot, to shout at a man who is sitting on the wall of a Bear Pit? I could have fallen in!’ Sledd swung his legs over the parapet and stood up on the pavement.
The speaker stepped back and then, drawn by his own inquisitiveness, stepped forward an extra pace. ‘Is there really a bear down there?’ he asked, looking over the wall.
‘Of course there is,’ Sledd said sharply, pointing to a sign on the wall. It said, in rather shaky capitals: ‘BEAR PIT’. ‘Can’t you read?’
Skirrow shrugged a shoulder. ‘Rather flea-bitten, but a bear nonetheless. I never thought to see such wonders,’ he said, trying to sound as though he meant it. Then he turned a rather unsavoury smile on Tom Sledd. ‘I can read, indeed I can, Master Sledd. That is how I could read your name on this packet here and also your description, written by Master Marlowe himself.’
‘Kit sent you?’ Tom Sledd felt his heart lift. If Kit was coming back … Then a horrible thought struck him. ‘Kit is well, isn’t he?’ Why would he write a description of him; why wouldn’t he come himself? He was lying, dead or dying, he knew it. Poisoned by hemlock. Skewered by a rapier. Drowned in the outer deeps. He should never have let him go.
If Tom Sledd had a failing, it was that he wore every thought on his head across his face, flickering and flashing light and shade as though the pictures themselves moved there. Skirrow laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Master Marlowe is well,’ he said. ‘My master, Sir George Carey, has asked him to get up a little entertainment for his guests, and Master Marlowe said there was no man in England who could put on a show as well as Thomas Sledd, of the Rose.’
Tom Sledd grew two inches and puffed out his chest. ‘Kit said that?’ he whispered.
Skirrow nodded and held out the package. Sledd tore it open, taking scant notice of the seal, which was just as well. Skirrow made a mess of it when he resealed it aboard the Bowe and had been picking at it absent-mindedly as he rode – it was a poor thing by now. But Sledd was reading, paraphrasing for Skirrow as he read, punching him on the arm every couple of words.
‘It’s true,’ the stage manager said. ‘It’s true. Kit wants me to go down to … a castle?’ He turned huge eyes on Skirrow, who sketched a bow. ‘And help them put on a play … with music …’ His eyes skimmed down the page. ‘He has enclosed some expenses …’ He weighed the little oiled silk bag which had been packed with the letter and then peered inside, raising his eyebrows. Little did he know it was now only half as valuable as it had been. Kit wanted him on the Wight and that was enough for him. He quickly did some calculations. An angel or two for Johanna and the rest for him would be enough. Skirrow meanwhile had taken the opportunity to step out of punching range.
‘So,’ he said, looking down on the bear again, which had now dropped off to sleep, tongue resting wetly on the bone. ‘To cut a long story short, are you able to come down to Carisbrooke and put on the ladies’ little amusement?’
His tone was bored and flat. He made it clear that he cared little about Tom, the ladies or their entertainment. Tom was of a mind to sen
d the fellow packing. And yet … and yet, Kit had asked for him. The theatre was going to the dogs. Henslowe was on his back to get this atrocious play of the Spanish Tragedy up and earning. Alleyn was away … Kit was away … Johanna was proving not quite worth the indigestion …
‘Yes!’ Sledd said. ‘I just need to get some things.’ He heard a door slam in the theatre. ‘But not from there. We will just go past my home, if that is on the way.’ He paused. ‘Which is the way?’
Skirrow threw an arm behind him, pointing roughly south and west.
Sledd linked an arm with his. His step was light and he gave the man a tug down the lane into the muddy thoroughfare beyond. ‘We won’t be passing my house, sad to say,’ he said, with a smile. He could always send word later. ‘Horse or carriage?’ He so hoped it would be a carriage, but horse would do as well. He had covered the length and breadth of the country with Ned Sledd’s travelling players in an old cart with wooden wheels and a broken-down horse to pull it. Whatever this man had at his disposal, it would be a cut above that.
Skirrow laughed. ‘Horse.’ It was almost too easy, but Vaughan need never know. ‘The stables are down this way.’ And the two men walked off together, Sledd’s head full of dreams.
Inside the theatre, Philip Henslowe was in full cry. You can take a dyer out of Bermondsey but you can’t make him like stage managers.
‘Tom! Tom Sledd!’ The echoing rafters mocked him but that was all.
One of the lads looked up from his nest in the costume corner. He was trying to learn his lines. His lisp gave him an almost insuperable problem with them and he was working hard to make himself understood. He didn’t need all of this noise and bellowing. He had been promoted to Isabella from a lowly Page and this could be his big break. ‘See,’ he cried, ‘where his Ghost solicits with his wounds revenge on her that should have revenged his death.’
‘Shut up, you loathsome little scullion,’ Henslowe roared. ‘If you don’t get that lisping tongue of yours sorted out, you’re back to the spit-turning, you little runt. Now, where is Tom Sledd? Have you seen him?’
