The Waterfall, page 4
‘This is?’ He spoke, like me, as a man of the north.
‘Master Shakespere. A playmaker.’
‘A playmaker?’ His eyebrows lifted as if Cullen had said I could swallow my own feet. And I noticed something a little odd when he spoke. A click-clacking sound like a twig stuck within the spokes of a cartwheel.
‘A friend of Marlowe.’
‘Ah.’ And in that one sound, there were a hundred thoughts. He walked away, and we followed, through a low door that opened to a very narrow staircase. We squeezed up the steps to find ourselves in a close little room, with a balcony overlooking the altar. ‘Cranmer composed the Book of Common Prayer in here forty years ago. For that reason, some call it the Chapterhouse. I like the name,’ Whitgift said. ‘It is the most private place in this palace, for there is nowhere for a spy to hide and eavesdrop.’ There was that clicking again. I looked close and understood the cause: the Archbishop’s teeth were made of white-stained wood, the natural ivory having rotted away, I presumed. Perhaps he had a fondness for sugar.
‘It is only for the most important guests,’ Cullen muttered in my ear, as if it were a private thought.
Whitgift sat on a short pew and gazed at me thoughtfully. ‘Tell.’
I told him. I told him how Kit had come to me, had said that Whitgift would protect him from certain accusations – the Archbishop’s eyebrow nearly lifted off his head at that, but he said nothing – how the man I knew only as ‘Nicholas’ had born false witness at the inquest.
‘Nicholas Skeres.’
‘You have the advantage of me, my lord.’
He gazed down at the altar. ‘Master Shakespere, who is your enemy?’ Click-clack-click.
Well, I had rivals such as Ben Jonson, whom I should have enjoyed seeing dropped in a pit of dung, but I would not have described him so much as an enemy. ‘None that I should like to nominate.’
‘A wise fellow. A politic fellow, no?’ He looked to Cullen.
‘Yes, Your Worship.’
‘But you are incorrect. Your enemy is the Pope.’
‘Of course, my lord.’
‘And his minions. The Spaniard, his Infanta. I could go on. Do you know who is your friend?’
‘I suspect, my lord, I am about to be informed.’
A sly smile pulled his mouth to one side. ‘A very politic fellow indeed! Your friend is the Turk. For he is the enemy of the Pope. Now, should the Pope turn Turk and follow the infidel Prophet, or the Turk turn his sight unto Rome, we should be left friendless. A pretty game, no?’
‘Pretty as a daffodil.’
He cleared his throat. ‘Her Majesty plays the game well. For a woman. She is sending the Turk sultan a gift to remind him how we of the true Church and they of their… cult are equally opposed to the idolatry of Rome.’
‘What gift is that?’ It was a little insubordinate of me to ask, but I was curious.
He paused, then pointed to the altar and the smashed icon upon it. ‘A picture paints a thousand words, does it not?’ He rose and walked to the balcony, which was opposite one of the stained windows. It depicted the building of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. ‘Marlowe was in my employ.’ I made no answer. I was not of the mind to let on just how much Kit had told me. ‘Did he speak to you of his mission?’
‘He did not.’
‘Mention a name or place?’
‘Who is Nicholas Skeres?’
He returned to the pew. ‘He is in Walsingham’s employ.’ I had heard as much during the inquest. Yet there was more to delve in that well, that was a certainty.
‘Walsingham is a traitor,’ muttered Cullen. Oho, there was enmity between these sons of England. Then I would have to be on my guard, too – for it ill befits a man to nail his colours to a mast before he knows which ship is the quickest.
‘Come, Gabriel, come. We do not know that for certain. Not yet.’
‘He takes the Pope’s gold, I know it. For a box of treasure, he would sell us all to Spain. If only the Queen could see it, too! The Spanish every day plot another Armada to set the Infanta upon the throne. Our throne, a Protestant throne!’
I had no doubt that the Archbishop feared a Spanish invasion more than any other in our land. If they were to succeed, he would be one of those tied to a stake and burned.
‘Kit was your spy on the Catholics of Holland, was he not?’ I suggested, thinking of the Dutch guilder he had bequeathed me within the sealskin package. ‘To infiltrate their bands and watch for Spanish schemes.’ He did not reply, but I knew that the answer was yes. ‘Then I should say the evidence against Walsingham is not so weak.’
‘I have seen weaker,’ Whitgift allowed. ‘Did Marlowe tell you anything? Give you anything?’ I made no answer, but my eyes betrayed me. ‘Ah, so he did.’ There was a pause. ‘Have you ever taken bread with an Archbishop of Canterbury?’ he asked with a twinkle in his eye and a clicking in his mouth.
‘You would, perhaps, care to dine with us this eve?’ Cullen suggested.
‘It would be the honour of my life.’
‘Oh, I am sure you will find it a more humble occasion than that,’ Whitgift replied. ‘I am to visit the Queen now. But if you return at the hour of eight, perhaps with something that Marlowe gave you, you will be most welcome.’ It was an order doused in honey.
‘I will, and gladly,’ I said. I bent my knee and walked backwards to the stairs and out of the chapel, leaving the two men to discuss what I had told them.
And yet, despite my words, whatever Kit had discovered of this plot, information for which he had been slain, I baulked at handing it to Whitgift. For there were wheels within wheels.
* * *
Outside, I hurried along the rose-lined Bishop’s Walk and out to the streets of Lambeth itself. I know not if it was decreed by God or a more mortal power, but the second I left the precinct of the palace the stench of death was once again in my nostrils. To my left, I saw a house with a plank nailed across the door and the tell-tale red cross painted upon it.
I hastened home. Marcel was sweeping the earth floor and looked surprised by my entry. Down the stairs came Alicette.
‘My dear?’ she said. ‘What befell you?’
‘I am sorry, I cannot tell you now.’ I took her in my arms and kissed her hard. ‘You should stay a while at your parents’ house. Get out of London. I do not trust this city.’
‘The Pestilence has reached Guildford, too.’
‘I talk not of the Pestilence.’
She looked at me queer. ‘What are you saying, Will? Is this to do with Kit? What happened to him?’
‘It is to do with him. But what happened to him I cannot say. There are designs at work that I cannot fathom.’ At that, I went to the kitchen, where I had stashed the package that Kit had entrusted to me. I carefully unwrapped it and unfurled the scroll, his final testament with the curious cartoon at the top of a pair of hands with the motto If I eat, I live. If I drink, I die inscribed finger by finger.
I stared at them. And the goddess Reason chose that moment to breathe into my mind. If I eat, I live. If I drink, I die. It was no rallying cry, it was a riddle. Oh, Kit, you knew well to whom you left this parchment. I never could resist a riddle, and you knew I would unpick it soon enough. For what lives if provisioned with dry victuals, but dies if provisioned with water?
Why, fire.
I called Marcel to build one and be quick to it. He looked at me as if my brains had already roasted.
‘But Master Shakespere, it is a hot day!’
I set him right and, though he grumbled, he soon built the fire and departed. Then, taking the paper, I held it before the hopping flames.
Sure as oaks stand strong, within a blink more writing appeared on the page. Written with lemon juice! Between the sardonic lines bequeathing me his worldly chattels, I beheld words as if set down by a brown spider.
Will. That you read this means danger or the worse has fallen upon me. Whitgift sent me to Aemsterdam to enter into secret Catholic circles. You may know the truth of my peril – and my death, if that has come – if you find Leon of Prague, who resides there. He will tell you of the Two Houses, which will shake our world to the very core. You must take up my mission with him, for it is of such import that failure will cast a pall on all our land – and other lands, too, no doubt. Will, I am sorry: by telling you this, I put you in danger. Be wary. But if ever I have been friend to you, find Leon of Prague.
What might shake our world to its core? Was this madness? Or had Kit knowledge of something quite diabolical? My heart beat hard. I knew not where this would or could lead. But I knew that I was for Aemsterdam in place of the Archbishop’s dinner. Kit had been murdered, and the truth lay in that city. Yet there was, that last testament of his whispered, something of far greater moment there, too, that I must witness.
I would seek out this Leon of Prague.
* * *
I walked along Deptford Strand, the puddles of river spray on the quay wetting my boots as the sun sank into the earth.
‘Constable?’ I made him jump in alarm.
‘Who goes there?’
‘But a stranger.’
‘State your business.’
Deptford was not a friendly place at night, it appeared. ‘I seek St Nicholas’s Church.’
He relented and pointed me in the correct direction, cautioning me to speak to no one on the way, lest I find a poniard at my throat and my purse in another’s hand.
With my lantern, a tallow candle shining within, I picked my way. The church was a big square edifice, strong-faced like a Roman regiment, with a bell tower whence a brace of bats flew in pursuit of some luckless morsel. I circled the building to the rear, where the graves were, and shone the lamplight on the stones. Some of the occupants should have been in the schoolroom, not the boneyard, and I thought of my own dear three chicks. When my heart grew pallid for Stratford, it was for them, and my annual return was like all the Holy Days at one.
Something stirred, a shadow rising at my side. I whirled and brandished my lantern, to find a degenerate, a man covered in the pox of the French disease. Seeing him, I took a step back – I was not desirous of weeks in a sweating tub with my sores lanced and then covered in searing quicksilver.
‘Spare a noble, sirrah?’ he huffed, his lungs working like burst bellows.
I kept my place. A beggar can quickly turn cutpurse.
‘I may. Know you where the grave of Christopher Marlowe lies?’
‘The playmaker?’ he said, holding his hand to shade his eyes.
‘Aye.’
He pointed to a spot at the foot of the bell tower. ‘Pauper’s grave there, sirrah. Saw him tipped in myself, so save me. I saw him before, too, when alive.’
‘When?’
‘Before I was… reduced, sirrah, I was a carpenter. Some of the struts in The Theatre are my own hands’ work. I saw him then, when the Admiral’s Men played Doctor Faustus. Ah, it was a pity to see him chucked into the ground like that. I did enjoy the play.’
I glanced back. There was a heap of fresh earth piled up. I tossed the pock-marked vagabond a noble. He picked it from the grass and bit it as I sidled to the rough grave.
‘Oh, Kit,’ I said. ‘You should have seen a better end. We have all been robbed of the worlds you would have made.’ I said a silent prayer for him and made to leave.
‘Sirrah?’ It was the rogue’s hoarse voice.
‘Aye.’
His voice became quite low, like the breeze through the headstones. ‘For another noble, I shall tell you something.’
I paused. I liked not his tone of hidden knowledge. But a noble I could spare for the right intelligence. I held the coin before my lamp beam. ‘Speak it.’
‘You are not the first to come.’
‘No?’
‘Yesternight. Two men.’
‘What men?’
‘The coin.’
I threw it to him. He grabbed it in the air and bit this one, too. He seemed satisfied. ‘They had spades.’
Spades? ‘For what purpose?’ He said nothing but pointed to the heap of earth. I caught his meaning. ‘Were they graverobbing?’ It seemed improbable – a man who robs graves does not choose a pauper’s pit.
‘I did not see. I betook myself elsewhere. I did not want it to be my grave, too.’
* * *
Before my final destination that night, I had one last call to make.
Thomas Kyd lived within a set of well-appointed rooms that he rented from a rich poulterer – perhaps the constant babble of geese from the yard below had been soothing to Kit’s quick brain when he lived here, too.
The rooms were well swept by a chambermaid who was straightening her skirt as I arrived, leaving Kyd at his writing board with a pen in hand.
‘Will!’ he said, surprised.
‘I have news of the inquest.’ I told him all that I had heard. ‘Of course, not a word of it is the truth.’
He slumped over his desk and tossed the quill aside. ‘There never was much of that when Kit was around.’
‘There is something even stranger.’ He perked up his head. ‘Did he travel overseas?’
‘Oh, you mean his spying visits?’ Kit was not kin to discretion! I shook my head in disbelief at his idiotic loose tongue. ‘Yes, yes. Back and forth to France, Spain.’
‘Did he speak of what occurred?’
‘Only in his cups. He credited himself as the greatest discoverer of Papist plots in Albion. To hear him tell it, he alone had saved the life of the Queen and half the court from being blasted to pieces, stabbed in the heart or spirited away to Rome in a wicker basket.’
‘Then it seems churlish for her to have him arrested for his calumnies against the Son of God.’
‘Just so. But of course, Kit probably thinks not that they were calumnies. Christ using John the Evangelist as a Ganymede? Kit would say it was a fine way to pass the time. “All they that love not tobacco and boys are fools!” That was his frequent refrain. And his self-condemnation. But…’ He stopped and looked at me shiftily.
‘Continue.’
‘I think his arrest was not for that offence.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I wonder if one in the court was unhappy with his intelligencing and had him taken for that instead. The charge of atheism meant that our rooms could be searched and something deeper found.’
‘Who would have such influence over the Queen?’
He lifted his empty hands. ‘I am a playmaker, Will, no intelligencer. But Kit claimed the Whitehall is as riddled with spies as with mouseholes; and Elizabeth enjoys setting one lord against another, so to maintain position they must traffic in intelligence, scandal or ridicule. Kit offered up all three. You know that it was Kit himself who put it about that he and Walter Raleigh were found together by Sir Walter’s manservant? Kit said he had been paid well to make the rumour.’ It did not surprise me for one moment that Kit would whore out his reputation in that manner – he would consider it a fine jest, and the golden angels he would no doubt be paid would be but sugar on the cake. Who had paid Kit for such work was a mystery – I could not see Whitgift indulging such a scheme.
‘Has the spying taken him to Aemsterdam?’
‘Most recent, it has. I knew he had been there, for he had excellent Chinese silks to sell.’
‘What did he tell you of it?’
He pondered. ‘He was elated, as if all his ships had docked at once. And spoke of a great coming together.’
‘A coming together of what?’
‘He would not say. But he did tell me that it would render thrones toys and armies boys’ games.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘You may make of that what you will.’ It was indeed cryptic. ‘Kit found an excitement in these duties that he took nowhere else. Not even watching his plays mount for the first time and hearing the roar of applause.’ I knew no playmaker who could remain untouched by that sound. Kyd’s voice softened. ‘Will, I never betrayed him. He betrayed himself. When our rooms were searched and the beadles found his blasphemic papers, what was I to say? That they were mine? Then I should hang for his offence.’
He spoke true. Kit had none to blame but himself. I gazed at the writing board. There were papers there, rolls of script, that Kyd was working upon. But beneath them there were others, and I recognized Kit’s hand. ‘What is that?’ I asked.
‘Oh, fragments of a play that Kit was writing when they came for him. I rescued the pages in case he should want them again.’ I picked them up. In his spider-like letters, the title leaf read Romeo and Juliet. A tragedie of family. I looked through. There were enough scenes for perhaps half a play. Some of the poetry was grand, some lacking in any finesse. ‘Take them if you wish. He has no more need of them.’ I rolled them and placed them within my doublet.
The Second Part
For once, I had good fortune when I came to the dockside. A vessel trading Hampshire wool was destined for Holland within the hour, and the captain was happy to take a paying passenger, asking no further questions.
The crossing lasted the night and a morning, and was a mild one apart from the time a fast ship crossed right before us and nearly turned us over in its wake. A figure on its deck laughed like a madman and waved his hat in mockery. But still, it was no distraction from my task. I spent most of the time looking into the white waves that we left behind us and considering just what Kit Marlowe was to me. He was a rose with thorns. Perhaps my closest friend when I was setting out on my road of playmaker – a confidante, a mentor, a traveller on the same road. But he could be a drain of good humour, too – a Narcissus, a squall always ready to become a storm. Still, take him all in all, he was a good man, though God’s blood it could be hard discovering that fact.
The port of Aemsterdam is a rich one, its trade with the Orient drawing in spices and silk and sending cloth and blue pottery in return; so that we had to fight for space coming in. On the quayside, merchants in fine woollen coats and broad-brimmed hats haggled over prices, their eyes glittering with the anticipation of profit, but I noted how their gloved hands rested on the pommels of their swords, too, so as to warn off the cutpurse.
