by M. J. Trow
‘Gentlemen! Gentlemen!’ Howard thought it time to assert his authority. ‘We are not engaged in privateer work here. We are Englishmen all and we must pull together. Sir Francis, will you shake Sir Martin’s hand?’
‘I will not!’ Drake was adamant.
‘I’d rather eat my own shit!’ Frobisher snapped.
‘Well.’ Howard’s smile was frozen. ‘I think I have the ethos of the meeting.’
‘You ’ave what you like,’ Frobisher growled. He snatched his wheel-lock and his sword and strode for the door. ‘I’ll be on board the Triumph,’ he said. ‘When the dons are sighted, let me know.’ And, as suddenly as he had swept in, he swept out again.
‘And I’ll be on the Revenge.’ Drake followed suit.
The other commanders watched them go and there was an awkward silence. John Hawkins cleared his throat. ‘I was very pleased, my lord,’ he said to Howard, ‘with the performance of Francis’s expedition. The ships held up well, despite the weather. I have the figures here, if you’re interested. Leaks, repairs and so on.’
‘Later, John,’ Howard said, still looking at the door and listening for the clash of steel in the passageway outside. Nothing. ‘Our priority now is to get the fever cases off the ships. I have sent letters to the local Justices of the Peace asking for more men. I don’t know how much good it will do.’
‘I’m not sure it matters that much,’ Hawkins said. Everybody looked at him. The man was a legend. He had designed the race-built ships that were all that stood between England and Spanish servitude. He had fought the Spaniards all over the world and seen shores no one around that table had. He was not a blusterer like Frobisher. He was not a pirate like Drake. When Hawkins spoke, men listened.
‘How so?’ Howard asked him.
‘Look at the weather, my lord,’ Hawkins said, jerking his head towards the window against which the rain lashed. ‘The Armada has already had a drubbing at its hands off Corunna. I think Philip the Wise will wait until next year. I’m not sure we’re needed just yet.’
They came in open rowing boats to the island of San Anton in the harbour of La Coruňa, all the thousands of the Armada; the arquebusiers and petronels, the lancers and hargulatiers, the calivermen, the bill and pikemen. Every man came unarmed. Every man came bareheaded. Their commanders stood on the platform: the Duke of Medina Sidonia, the High Admiral Diego de Valdez and the others, glittering in their gold finery, shining in their blued steel. The bishop of La Coruňa blessed every man, the censors swinging in the morning and the Te Deum echoing across the harbour. The great embroidered standards shifted in the wind – the flags of Castile and Leon, of Asturias and Galicia, the banners of Portugal and Aragon and Andalusia.
Each man knelt before the bishop, who made the sign of the cross over him, and a priest gave each crusader a pewter medallion with Christ on one face and His Holy Mother on the other. ‘God keep you,’ the bishop intoned.
Diego de Valdez whispered out of the corner of his mouth, ‘God keep us all.’ Earlier that day he had sent home four hundred new recruits from Galicia. They had brought their women and children with them, crying and whimpering. The men did not know one end of an arquebus from another and he had sent them home. Desertion was in the wind, but the wind was vital.
And now it would blow them all to England.
‘So Drake went off to burn the Spaniards out,’ Nicholas Faunt told Kit Marlowe, ‘but it didn’t quite work out that way. Halfway into Biscay the wind changed and Drake’s squadron was obliged to turn back. They’re in Plymouth now, twiddling their thumbs.’
‘That’s to the good, surely?’ Marlowe asked, passing the goatskin of wine to his fellow projectioner.
‘If you want to fight a defensive war.’ Faunt took a swig. ‘What’s the mood here?’
‘Here’ was Newtown, a wild and desolate place beyond Hamstead Ledge where the sea kissed the pebbles. There were reeds swaying and whispering above the salt marshes and moorhens fought and bickered with the bitterns over their old nesting grounds.
‘Funny you should ask that,’ Marlowe said. ‘There was a town here once, before the harbour silted up. The French sacked it, I’m told.’
Faunt looked at the fields, curiously straight and narrow where the old streets had run. ‘Before my time.’ He shrugged. ‘And I didn’t come all the way over to this arse-end of the universe to talk over ancient history. What news of Hasler?’
‘There are no further worries on that score.’
‘Oh?’ Faunt raised an eyebrow. He knew his Marlowe only too well. And yet he did not know him at all. The man was Machiavel; the Devil incarnate, some said. ‘No further worries’ to him might mean a wagonload of woe to someone else.
‘If he was on your payroll, take him off it.’
‘Dead?’
‘In a manner of speaking,’ Marlowe told him. ‘Don’t press me further on this, Master Faunt. We have other fish to fry.’
‘Do we?’ Faunt said. What he did know about Kit Marlowe was that the man was like an ox in the furrow. He doubted whether even Richard Topcliffe’s rack in the Tower would get much out of him. He hoped it would never be put to the test.
‘Murders,’ Marlowe said. ‘Three of them, to be precise. But they’re my problem too.’
‘Marlowe!’ Faunt bellowed at him. A pair of moorhen rose flapping noisily from the water and Faunt checked to make sure that his waiting boatman was out of earshot. ‘I have come here, at considerable difficulty and not a little expense, largely, I agree at the bidding of the Lord Admiral, but I have come to find out what the Hell is going on. Your task was to find Hasler.’
‘And I’ve found him.’ Marlowe nodded. ‘Forgive me, Master Faunt, if I remark that this conversation is going round in circles.’
‘The murders,’ Faunt persisted. ‘Tell me about them.’
Marlowe looked at the man and produced papers from his doublet. ‘What do you make of this?’ he asked.
Faunt looked at the documents. Not a hand he knew, certainly. He held them up to the sky where the weak July sun hit them. ‘No lemon juice,’ he said, sniffing the parchment for good measure. ‘Where did you get these?’
‘They were hidden, rather too obviously if you understand my meaning, in books in my chamber at Carisbrooke.’
‘What books?’
‘George Carey’s. I’d borrowed them from his library. Specifically, they were tucked inside a copy of Ralph Holinshed’s Chronicles. Does any of it make sense?’
‘Lord Thomas,’ Faunt murmured, reading the lines again more carefully and looking at the meaning of the words themselves rather than for some hidden cipher hidden within them. ‘And Lord Thomas delighted in the girl’s body and would chase her through the knot garden and slap her backside bare. She would howl withal but seemed to enjoy it and never more than when the Lady Catherine held her down.’ It had been a long time since Nicholas Faunt had been able to read a piece of writing without looking for the other meaning, the one that lay beneath. ‘Lord Thomas … hmm. That narrows the field but it still gives us upwards of four hundred people. But this … this poem, if that’s what it is. Three steps back and three steps fore. Can I take these with me?’
‘Of course,’ Marlowe said. ‘I have looked at them until my head ached. Perhaps someone else can make sense of them.’
‘It could be a code,’ Faunt told him. ‘One for Thomas Phelippes. You know how he loves this sort of thing.’
Marlowe did. Francis Walsingham’s code-breaker was a genius. If anyone could decipher the thing, Thomas Phelippes could. ‘Are they still on their way to us?’ Marlowe asked. ‘The Armada, I mean.’
Faunt shrugged. ‘Who knows, Kit,’ he said. ‘Our Intelligence changes from day to day.’
‘It’s just that … I think we have a spy in our midst.’
Faunt sat upright, in mid-swig from the goatskin. There seemed to be no one about; just the boatman dozing at his oars and Marlowe’s horse cropping the lush grass of what once had been Silver
Street. ‘How typical of you, Master Marlowe, if I may say as much, to keep the most important news until the last. The cuckoo in the nest, as my all-too-brief brief said. Anyone in mind?’
Marlowe shook his head. ‘I am a playwright,’ he said with a smile. ‘I can’t let my best plot line out too soon. But, to be serious, there are whispers about George Carey.’
‘Carey?’ Faunt was aghast. ‘He’s the Queen’s cousin, man.’
‘And Cain was Abel’s brother,’ Marlowe reminded him.
‘Point taken.’ Faunt nodded. ‘But still … George Carey?’
‘Or his wife.’
‘Ah.’
Was that the faintest of blushes that Marlowe saw flit across the marble face of Nicholas Faunt?
‘Elizabeth,’ the man went on. ‘I’ve met her at court a few times. You think she might …?’
‘I know she does,’ Marlowe smiled. ‘The question is, is she sleeping with the enemy? Take it from me, Nicholas, this Island is like a kettle, bubbling and seething with hatred and hostility. Men rise from the grave and towns disappear. Something will crack soon. And one of us had better be ready.’
Faunt stood up and called to wake the boatman. ‘There’s a rumour in the west that Carey took a prize, a Spanish ship of the line.’
Marlowe nodded. ‘News travels well,’ he said. ‘A pinnace. Landed on the Island.’
‘Lost?’
‘Lost, be damned,’ Marlowe said. ‘It was invited here, at a specific time and a specific place. The question is, by whom?’
Faunt looked confused. ‘But … surely if George Carey invited the bastards, he’d hardly take them as a prize?’
‘You are doubtless familiar with the wooden horse of Troy, Nicholas,’ Marlowe said.
‘Doubtless,’ Faunt nodded.
‘There are twenty Spaniards languishing in the gaol at Newport, brought into the heart of the town on the orders of Carey himself. He now owns the only fighting ship the Wight possesses. Everybody tells me that George Carey does not have a friend in the world, but what if that isn’t true? What if the men of the Wight are merely waiting for his signal, to release the Spaniards and hoist the flag of Spain over Carisbrooke? Medina Sidonia will sail in, a conquering hero.’
‘Our understanding,’ Faunt countered, ‘is that they’re all rabid Puritans here, dyed-in-the-wool, watered-down Calvinists.’
‘Your understanding,’ Marlowe reminded him. ‘There are more things in Heaven and earth, Nicholas …’
‘Yes,’ the projectioner sighed. ‘I’d heard that too. Well, I must away, Kit. See what Phelippes makes of these letters. In the meantime, watch out for yourself, old lad. Oh, and one thing I was asked to ask you – this comes from the Queen herself, mind, so although I am charged to say you are under no obligation, you must understand that if you don’t do it, you may end up in the Tower …’
‘It sounds intriguing. What is it?’ Marlowe’s imagination, always fertile, swam with possibilities, some of which turned his stomach.
‘The Queen is at Placentia, near Leicester’s troops along the Tilbury marshes. She will soon have to make a speech to stir the country, or at least Leicester’s men in the field. There is no doubt that the Spaniards are coming, Kit, and it won’t do if she stumbles over her words. Do you think you could … well, could you run something up? No rush. But when you can …’
‘I’ll do my best, Nicholas. Blank verse?’ The poet raised an eyebrow.
‘Just a speech, Kit,’ Faunt said. ‘Nothing fancy. After all, she only has the body of a weak and feeble woman. I’ll send a messenger if we need it urgently. Well, goodbye. I will see you soon, I’m sure.’
He shook the man’s hand and clattered out along the boardwalk, towards his boat, not liking at all the sigh of the reeds and the way the clouds were building to the west.
Marlowe watched him go and turned over a thought that was frequently in his head. Did Nicholas Faunt see him as often as he saw Nicholas Faunt? Or, as he suspected, far more often than that?
William Edwards had painful feet but they were not hurting him anything like as much as his hand was hurting him. And that was as nothing compared to his wrist. He had written out what had seemed like hundreds of copies of Vaughan’s letter to the great and the good of the Wight and now he was having to deliver them, too. With his worn-out writing arm tucked inside his doublet to try and give him some ease he couldn’t ride, even if his masters had seen fit to provide a horse, which they hadn’t. With the newly renamed Commander blocking the exit of the river, Vaughan and Denny had delivery problems of their own. Edwards carried a canvas bag from his shoulder and delved awkwardly in it from time to time, shuffling papers around to find the right one for the right address. He sighed; the wages were adequate, the food was acceptable, the lodgings not at all uncomfortable, but William Edwards was thinking of changing his employment. Using his shoulder, he pushed open a gate and plodded up a puddle-pocked path to the front door of the house which was the next one on his list. He stepped in a pothole and fell sideways, too tired and too disadvantaged by his arm to break his fall. He rolled over and sat there, wet and fed up to the back teeth.
He drew in his legs at the plash of an approaching horse. The animal was pulled up in front of him but he couldn’t even bother to look up.
‘Will?’ A voice came from overhead. ‘Will Edwards? What are you doing here?’
Edwards looked up and saw a huge black horse looming over him and on his back a man he knew from around the town. James … James … he just couldn’t bring the man’s name to mind.
The horseman sprang down from the saddle and offered Edwards a hand. ‘It’s James,’ he said. ‘James Currier. You must remember me, I …’
It was all coming back to Edwards now. This man worked up at the castle. Hence the horse, he thought, sullenly. He hauled himself up using Currier’s weight as a counter. ‘Of course I remember you. The Crown.’
The man laughed. ‘Amongst others. But I have my orders. No ale or any spirits until I have all these delivered.’ He patted a bag slung across his chest. ‘There’s hundreds of the bloody things. Invites to this Masque thing they’re having. You wouldn’t believe the to-do.’ He peered round under Edwards’ arm. ‘You delivering too? Not more invites, surely?’
Edwards lied. ‘I dunno what they are,’ he said, although every word was engraved on his brain. ‘I just got told to go and hand them out.’
‘You hurt your arm?’ Currier asked.
Blasting him for a nosy coke, Edwards lied again. ‘Fell off the Bowe the other night. Knocked it on the way down.’
‘Talk at the castle is that old devil Sculpe drowned t’other night.’
Edwards shrugged. ‘So I hear. Well, I must get on. These letters won’t deliver themselves.’ He started plodding on up the path again.
‘Wait,’ Currier said. ‘I have a thought. You can’t ride because of your knock. I’m getting fair tired of upping and downing off this horse at every house. Why don’t you deliver my invitations in the town and I will do them in the country? Half the work, same result.’ He beamed into Edwards’ face. ‘What do you say?’
Edwards had more to lose than Currier did if things went wrong. His life, for one instance. Odds and ends of body parts if he was a little luckier, but his feet did hurt him and his arm was aching. He came to a decision. ‘All right. But don’t open any of these letters. They are private from Master Vaughan and if he finds out you know what’s in there …’
Currier didn’t need Edwards to fill in all the gory details. The rumour mill ground hot and strong up at the castle and what wasn’t known for sure, you could rely on Ester to embellish. He held up a hand. ‘As God is my witness,’ he said. ‘I won’t even peep around the seal.’
‘As long as I can trust you, Master Currier,’ Edwards said. ‘We will need to divide these up. Where can we go to do that?’
‘There must be an inn near here.’
‘I thought you couldn’t drink while you were deli
vering.’
‘Not while I am delivering. I can drink when I am sorting. Completely different job, sorting.’
Edwards sighed and agreed. He could probably spare the odd finger, or foot when he got found out. After all, all they did was ache, so why not risk it? The two men, one hobbling and the other leading a horse, wandered off in search of an inn.
Robert Dillington’s house at Knighton Gorges lay in the valley below the ridge where the Armada beacons stood ready against the sullen grey of the sky. The man had spent a fortune on it. The gardens were more intricate in their knots than any Marlowe had ever seen and peacocks strutted there, their azure necks bright even on a dull day like this one. They shivered their tails and displayed the feathers shimmering in green and gold like the Queen’s banners at Whitehall.
‘What news of Whitehall?’ The master of Knighton was checking his cherry trees as he walked with Marlowe in the orchard. The river tumbled and splashed its way over the rocks below them.
‘I know little of Whitehall, Sir Robert,’ Marlowe lied. ‘I am a poet, a playwright.’
‘Yes,’ Dillington said, extending the syllable into a sentence. ‘What of the Curtain, then? The Theatre?’
‘Alas,’ Marlowe smiled. ‘I am with the Rose at the moment.’
‘The Rose.’ Dillington rubbed his hands together. ‘Yes, of course. Henslowe’s Folly. South of the river. Does he keep a bear there? I have heard it said.’
‘He keeps a bear nearby, yes.’
‘And, tell me.’ Dillington checked under the trees to make sure they were alone. ‘The Winchester Geese, are they still … gaggling?’
Marlowe laughed. ‘I’ve never heard it called that before, Sir Robert,’ he said. ‘I think I am wasted here. Philip Henslowe could use you on the Spanish Tragedy.’
‘Ah, yes, the Spanish tragedy.’ Dillington’s face darkened. ‘We may yet be caught up in that. But the Geese.’ The Lord of Knighton was a persistent man. ‘Is it true they do it in the street? Bare themselves shamelessly?’ He was almost salivating.
‘You’d have to ask my stage manager, Tom Sledd,’ Marlowe said. He stopped walking. ‘Is that why you have asked me here, sir, to discuss the whiles of London whores?’
