Black Death

by M. J. Trow

  ‘I could pull off the beard and cut my hair and put on my own Venetians and Colleyweston. Even show you Lord Burghley’s seal of office. And you still wouldn’t have a clue, would you?’

  Realization dawned at last. ‘You’re …’ Sledd shouted, but the poet’s hand was across his mouth in a second.

  ‘Nicholas Faunt, late of Sir Francis Walsingham’s secret service, yes. Today, I work for Burghley, but it largely amounts to the same thing.’ He slowly let his hand drop and huddled closer to Sledd, not for warmth or comfort but so that his conversation could not be heard. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t recognize me. As soon as I saw you, I said to myself, “Bugger. It’s Tom Sledd and he’ll see through this stage makeup faster than Roland Sleford chains innocent people up.” But no, not you. How many adventures have we had together, one way or another, involving Kit Marlowe?’

  ‘Kit Marlowe!’ Sledd blurted out, then hissed, ‘the shit! He left me here to rot.’

  ‘He had no choice,’ Faunt mumbled. ‘He’d come to get you out, then he saw me. He recognized me at once.’

  ‘Well …’ Sledd shrugged, feeling stupid as well as exhausted and witless.

  ‘He realized I was here for a reason and couldn’t compromise my position.’

  ‘What reason?’ Sledd whispered. He was starting to feel a lot better now that a man of Nicholas Faunt’s standing was sitting beside him.

  ‘Your light-fingered friend over there,’ Faunt nodded in the man’s direction. ‘The fornicator.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He’s a Jesuit. Name of Ballantine. He’s been on the run for weeks now and we got intelligence that he was hiding here. My problem was how to identify him, how to prove he was only mad nor’ by nor’west. He could have been anybody.’

  ‘Except me!’ Sledd pointed out, trying to keep his voice low and his brain from exploding. ‘You knew it couldn’t be me.’

  ‘Of course, but I couldn’t risk exposing myself even to get you out. I still can’t.’

  ‘What?’ Sledd grabbed the man by his rags. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘One little slipped “Pax vobiscum” isn’t enough for the Secretary of State. And let’s face it, he hasn’t been behaving much like a Jesuit priest, has he? But now I know who he is, I can work on him. Just a day or so, Tom, and we’ll both walk out of here; I promise.’

  Sledd hesitated. He wanted to hit Nicholas Faunt, over and over again. He wanted to strangle him with his own bare hands; but that way, he knew, he’d never leave Bedlam.

  ‘A day or two,’ he hissed. ‘No more.’

  But the poet who was really a projectioner had already spotted Jack on his late morning rounds, traipsing in their direction. ‘I know more than Apollo,’ he told the gaoler. ‘For oft, when he lies sleeping, I see the stars at bloody wars in the wounded welkin weeping.’

  Jack aimed a kick at Faunt’s genitals. ‘Of course you do, you mad bastard,’ he growled.

  Inside the alehouse, it was soon apparent that, allowed or not, Gerard and ale were not bosom companions. He took a sip of the thin froth and blinked. ‘Strong,’ he said.

  Marlowe had just been thinking that he might have to change to Rhenish rather than drink gutter water, but he persevered, so the lad felt at home in his company. He nodded his agreement. ‘I know we have only just met, Gerard,’ he said, putting down his goblet, ‘but you strike me as a rather unhappy young apprentice.’

  Gerard shook his head vehemently. ‘I am very happy,’ he said. ‘The magus treats us well. The food is good. I will have a profession one day.’ It was the final sentence that held the harmony of doubt.

  ‘What profession?’ Marlowe took another sip, watching him over the rim of his goblet.

  ‘Healer,’ Gerard said, defiantly.

  ‘Healer. I see. And what will you heal? And how will you do it? You can’t wear a plague doctor’s mask for ever. The Pestilence will not stalk our streets for all of your life, you know. And what will you do then?’

  ‘There are other ills,’ Gerard said, a touch defiantly. ‘There are always women needing help, the magus says.’

  Marlowe heard the doubt again and pounced on it. ‘Women? Just women?’

  Gerard put down his drink so Marlowe could not see how his hand trembled. ‘Master Marlowe,’ he said. ‘Can I tell you something?’

  ‘Anything.’ Marlowe could extract the final secret from a clam.

  ‘I have begun to wonder … these last days … well, I have begun to wonder if the magus might be a sham.’

  Marlowe was not much of an actor, but he could feign amazement and did so now. ‘A sham? The great Dr Forman? But the Queen …’

  ‘I know!’ Gerard lowered his voice and looked round to see if people were staring. ‘But I have … he has shared with me … things I don’t really want to tell you, Master Marlowe, if I may keep that secret. It is the way he … it’s the women, you see.’

  Marlowe saw. He knew charlatans much worse than Forman, who used methods far more venal. But they made no bones about it. Ned Alleyn, for example, used his fame and other undeniable talents to ensnare any women who came into his orbit. But he and they knew what would happen and, when it all was over, there were no ill-feelings and in a good week he could double his theatre earnings and more. But Forman preyed on the scared and lonely, and that Marlowe could not abide.

  ‘Don’t worry, Gerard.’ He had seen the clandestine tear drop into the boy’s ale. ‘You don’t need to do what you don’t want to. I feel that you have healing in you. I could see when you were handing out the herbs that you really cared for those poor people. Stick to that, and you won’t go far wrong.’

  ‘I’ll never be rich, though,’ the lad wailed.

  ‘Money isn’t everything,’ Marlowe told him. ‘Being happy is worth more and is often harder to achieve. Just forget what he said to you. Put it from your mind and keep on with your work. I assume you learned your herbal lore from … who? Your mother?’

  ‘My grandame. She is a …’ Gerard had heard what the village called her, when they came one by one in the night to her back door, but he wasn’t going to use the ‘w’ word in front of a virtual stranger, famous though he might be.

  Marlowe raised a hand. ‘I understand. Follow your grandame and you won’t be rich, but you will be happy. I guarantee it. But is there something else? You look happier already, but you still have something on your mind.’

  Gerard felt a chill up his spine. This man could read his mind as well as any seer. For a terrifying minute, he wondered whether he came from Forman, or from Hell itself. But he was stepped in so far, it would be tedious now to go back, so he carried on. ‘We have a maidservant at the house. She hasn’t many brains, love her heart, but she means well. After the magus had given me his talk, he sent me to …’ His eyes welled up again.

  ‘Practise?’ Marlowe checked.

  The apprentice nodded. ‘Don’t get me wrong, Master Marlowe. I am no innocent. We tend to make our own entertainment in the country. But I couldn’t do what the magus told me to do. Not to little Tabitha, anyway. So, we just talked. I told her not to tell anyone that we had just talked but she was happy to do that. She’s just a child and … well, we talked. And she told me that when the magus had told us he was out in the countryside, bringing healing to the people, he was at home, stinking in his bed, was what she said. Apart from Saturday night, when he went out in all his full finery and didn’t get back until late Sunday. He lied to us, Master Marlowe!’

  Marlowe smiled and drained his goblet. ‘We all lie, all the time, Gerard,’ he said. ‘Have you never lied to Master Forman?’

  The apprentice blushed.

  ‘You need to work on that,’ Marlowe said, waving a hand in front of the lad’s face, which burned all the brighter. ‘I’ll take it to mean that you have.’

  ‘We all did,’ he explained. ‘We were all out in the world, as the magus puts it, for a week. None of us did very well. I just camped out for a week. It was relaxing; I
met a few nice people. I gave one boy a tincture for a toenail that was giving him pain. But I didn’t heal the dozens I claimed. Matthias just went home to mother. They live in a big house somewhere near London. Timothy did earn some money, but he lost it when his horse had a foal.’

  Marlowe was sure there was a story there, but didn’t have time to hear it.

  ‘So yes, we lie. But we’re apprentices, Master Marlowe. We’re meant to lie.’

  ‘That’s an unusual view,’ Marlowe pointed out, ‘but not unique, I’m sure. We should be getting you back, however. Otherwise, you will be practising your lying skills once more.’

  ‘When you see the magus, Master Marlowe, you won’t tell him, will you? What we’ve been talking about?’

  Marlowe clapped a hand over his mouth. ‘I am as silent as the grave,’ he promised. ‘Your master will learn nothing from me.’

  ‘Thank you. Let me take you to the magus, then.’

  And the two walked up the lane, through the door, and towards the sanctum of Doctor Simon Forman, Magus to Her Majesty.

  Forman was otherwise engaged. Mistress Forman was leaning on her fists on his desk and staring him down. He had actually based his famous basilisk stare on his wife, though he would go through Hell and high water before he admitted it.

  ‘But, Jeanie,’ he crooned, trying to calm her down.

  ‘Don’t “but Jeanie” me,’ she said. ‘I will not have you sending your boys to practise your vile arts on my Tabitha. She is a good girl, from the country; she doesn’t want truck with all that. Besides, I can’t get a minute’s work out of her today. She keeps bursting into hysterics.’

  Forman looked outraged. ‘Who was the fellow?’ he roared. ‘Whoever it is will be sent from this house forthwith.’

  ‘Don’t give me your flannel,’ she said. ‘I didn’t come down with the last shower of frogs. It was Gerard. He is a dear boy and did nothing, as it happens. Tab might be a bit slow, but she knew what you had told him to do.’

  ‘Because she listens at doors!’ Forman had learned years ago that the best defence is attack.

  ‘So what if she does? I would know nothing of what you do if she never spent a few minutes at a keyhole now and again. But I’m telling you, Simon Forman …’

  ‘Simon Erasmus Hippocrates Forman,’ he corrected her.

  ‘What?’ This stopped her dead. ‘When did you get those names, may I ask?’

  ‘They came to me in a dream,’ he said, complacently.

  She threw up her hands in resignation. ‘I give up,’ she said. ‘Don’t do it again.’

  ‘Don’t do what?’ he tried a winning smile.

  ‘Anything!’ And with that, she turned on her heel and threw open the door.

  Gerard was standing there, with a complete stranger. He looked no better than he should be, clearly some lowlife crony of her lowlife husband. She hauled off and fetched Gerard a handy one upside the head.

  Gerard clasped his ear and howled. ‘Ow! What was that for?’

  But the woman had gone.

  Forman stood up behind his desk and tried not to look like a man recently torn into metaphorical shreds by his wife. He gestured for Marlowe to come in and sit, then turned his attention to Gerard.

  ‘I’m sorry, my boy,’ he said, and Marlowe had never heard a voice as devoid of sorrow. ‘My wife is a little overwrought. Go and get one of the others to put a cold compress on that ear. I would suggest comfrey and knitbone.’

  Gerard went off muttering, his head still singing. Mistress Forman had a strong right arm, sure enough, but she hadn’t broken anything in his head. It was his heart that was broken – his idol had feet of worse than clay and he had proved it with that stupid remedy. Gerard went straight to his bench, to find himself some self-heal and some camomile.

  ‘So, Master Marlowe,’ he said, trying to make it sound like a prognostication from on high, ‘it is Master Marlowe, isn’t it?’

  ‘As you well know, Master Forman.’ Marlowe bowed.

  ‘Doctor.’

  There was possibly a joke there, but Marlowe wasn’t in the mood.

  Forman waited for the correction, then gave up. ‘What is it you want, Master Marlowe? My time is precious.’

  ‘Hmm. As you say. My request is a simple one, Master Forman. I want you to go to Lord Burghley and recommend that the theatres are reopened.’

  Forman goggled. ‘A simple request, you say?’

  ‘Indeed. I have reason enough to believe that Burghley regrets the closure. It has caused one riot already and more will follow. You just need to say that when you said the theatres should be closed, you misspoke.’

  Forman leaned forward, his eyes icy. It was a look which had quelled many a lesser man. ‘I never misspeak.’

  ‘Again, as you say. But I will not take no for an answer, Master Forman. If you do not do as I say, I will use my not-inconsiderable influence in high places to ensure that the many husbands you have cuckolded find out precisely why their wives will only consent to Master Forman doctoring at their bedside.’

  Forman might have been made of stone.

  ‘Does that sound like something a husband would want to hear?’ Marlowe went on. ‘I can think of several who would run you through first and ask questions later. Sir George Stafford, for example, has been known to knock a groom unconscious because he touched his wife’s knee as she was mounting her horse. So you can see how they might misunderstand what you touch when mounting their wives.’

  Forman slammed his fist down on the table top. ‘I will go to Lord Burghley,’ he said, through gritted teeth. ‘But if the entire populace of London dies of the Pestilence, be it on your head.’

  Marlowe shrugged and got up. ‘As I am one of the populace of London, Master Forman, I doubt I would be in a position to care,’ he said. ‘But I will bear it in mind.’

  Forman stood and went to a hook behind the door. He swung his gorgeous cape around his shoulders and barged past Marlowe. ‘No time like the present,’ he muttered, and slammed his way through the laboratory and out into the street.

  ‘What’s the matter with him?’ Matthias asked, with no interest in the answer.

  ‘I think your master has seen a door opening which will give him the result he wants with no loss of face,’ Marlowe said, coming through from the sanctum. ‘In other words, the theatres open, London alive again and foolish women flocking to his door. It should please you, too. You won’t be sent out to earn your bread again for a while.’

  Matthias was sorry – his letters, translated with some aplomb by Timothy, had made him long for his French governess even more. Timothy, hard at work among his retorts, looked up briefly. ‘Master Marlowe,’ he said. ‘Timothy.’ He bowed from the neck. ‘I am pleased to make your acquaintance. Your plays have brought us much pleasure.’

  ‘Thank you, Timothy. And your friend?’

  ‘Matthias. You are quite right, we were beginning to notice short rations. Thank you for making our master see sense.’

  ‘That’s not easy,’ muttered Gerard through the poultice on his head.

  ‘It has been a pleasure to meet you all,’ Marlowe said with an all-encompassing bow and swept from the room, more elegantly than Forman could ever manage and with a good deal less noise. The apprentices heard an excited twittering in the hall as he made his goodbyes to Mistress Forman. Christopher Marlowe was very good at exiting stage right, left or centre.

  THIRTEEN

  ‘I remember you,’ the constable of the Watch said, looking at Marlowe. ‘Still looking for that old enemy?’

  ‘I’ve found a lot more since,’ Marlowe smiled. ‘How goes the Pestilence?’

  ‘On the wane, they say,’ the other constable said, ‘but if you see a cross on the door, I’d keep wide of it.’

  ‘I will,’ Marlowe said and strode on between the leaning tenements along Kyroun Lane. There was still no cross on Mrs Isam’s door and he banged on it with his fist.

  A girl answered, perhaps sixteen, in the clothe
s of a maid. Her gaze, however, had nothing of the scullery about it. ‘Yes?’ she pouted.

  ‘Is your mistress in?’ Marlowe asked.

  ‘If it’s a mistress you’re looking for …’ the girl sidled closer to him, sliding her hand down his doublet.

  ‘Leave the gentleman alone!’ a harsh voice snapped. It was followed by a smack around the head and Mrs Isam, responsible for both, stood there fuming. ‘Master Marlowe,’ she scowled at him, ignoring the protestations of the girl, who sauntered away, holding her ringing ear.

  ‘Mistress Isam,’ he nodded. ‘May I come in?’

  ‘What do you want? None of my girls, that’s obvious.’ For the briefest of moments, the bawd wondered whether Marlowe’s tastes might run to the older woman, such as herself, perhaps. But there was a look on Marlowe’s face that told her not to entertain the idea.

  ‘I have come for Dominus Greene’s things,’ he said.

  ‘What things?’ Mrs Isam asked.

  ‘His effects. You know – clothes, books, pipe …’ the poet-playwright was already running out of ideas.

  ‘There’s no money,’ Mrs Isam cut to the chase. ‘You can come in and look if you like.’

  Marlowe ducked into the dark of the passageway and followed as the landlady-turned-brothel-keeper led him up a twisting stairway. Almost every riser creaked under their weight. If the late Robert Greene was afraid of his murderer, he would have heard him in plenty of time on this staircase.

  Robert Greene’s room was a tiny hovel under the eaves. Through the cobwebbed window, Marlowe could make out the spars of the ships at the Queen’s Wharves from Dowgate to Ebbgate and Oystergate beyond that. Southwark, he knew, stood across the river, with the Rose, locked and barred now, and the bear pits that had once drawn the crowds too. All of it lay hidden by mist, as though time, in a single inked line from Burghley, had wiped out their existence. The bed was small and cramped. It was a bed for sleeping, not loving; a bed in which to die. Marlowe opened the single cupboard door and a couple of shirts hung there.