Dark Entry (30 page)

‘If?’ Dee said.

‘Yes. If. That will leave me time.’ The older men started to complain, to argue that they should just stop the man and see what he was up to.

‘He’ll say he was up to have a midnight ride, after the stresses of the day. We have to catch him red-handed or we won’t catch him at all. Go into the house, but don’t raise the alarm. Just tell Sir Francis. Then, get a carriage, or a horse if you’re able.’ Marlowe remembered the time slip journey with Dee, but put that out of his head. ‘Get into Cambridge as fast as you can and raise the Watch, Constable Fludd for preference.’ Then he was running on tip toe along the edge of the shadow of the stable wall. And he was gone.

The stable boy at the inn was in seventh heaven. He had never even been near a horse this beautiful before, let alone had one left in his care. And if that scholar, the one with the scary eyes, hadn’t come back by tomorrow, he would be able to ride this lovely beast all the way to Cambridge. He started to plan his route, the slow way, the most meandering way he could devise . . .

‘Boy!’ Marlowe’s voice cut through his reverie. ‘Is my horse ready?’

With a sigh, the lad got up from where he sat in the stall and wordlessly handed Marlowe the reins. The dream had been nice though, whilst it lasted.

The animal had liked the boy. He had been kind and had apples in his pocket, a little wizened at this time of year, but a nice change from oats. But Marlowe was exciting, leaping on to his back and then keeping him, like a coiled spring, back from the light that spilled in through the stable door. Soon, in the distance, the beat of a horse’s feet thrummed through the night, first as a tremor in the horse’s fetlocks, then as a sound that anyone could hear. The stallion whickered and tossed its mane, but Marlowe kept him reined back until the hoof beats began to recede, dopplering into the distance. Only then did he give the horse his head and how they flew, eating up the dusty road on the way to Cambridge, still outlined on the night sky by the few desultory fires still burning on the outskirts.

Every now and again, Marlowe reined his mount in and they sat, like one exotic creature, ears cocked to judge the distance and direction of the other rider. When they were too near, Marlowe walked the black, only breaking into a canter when the sound was faint enough. Once or twice, the lead horse stopped also, and Marlowe could imagine the rider twisted in the saddle, listening for the hoof beats which were following him. But he always set off again, Marlowe like an echo in the night.

A gap in the hedge gave him an idea and he urged the stallion through it and into the field beyond. They couldn’t keep up the speed on the more uneven ground, but what they lost in speed, they made up for in not having to stop, because the horse was almost silent in the soft meadow grass.

Soon another sound could be heard over the beat of the galloping horse, the creaking leather, plodding feet and rumbling wheels of the carriage bearing the Fellows back to Cambridge. Marlowe could faintly hear their querulous cries to the groom to go more slowly and not to rock about so much and he knew they were really close. He couldn’t hear the other horse any more. Either he was waiting for Marlowe, knowing he was being chased, or he had fallen into silent company with the carriage, waiting to carry out the rest of his murder when he got the opportunity.

Slowing the horse to a walk, Marlowe had a chance to listen to the beating of his heart; this could so easily be a trap. He had enemies of his own. There was more than one way to skin a cat, and . . . had it been Tom? Matt? . . . had reminded him that there were five arches in the Dark Entry and five scholars, now reduced to three. Was the woman in the river a red herring? Were Manwood and Dee really on his side, or had they been part of an elaborate plot all along? The stallion tossed his head as the reins drew tighter in his soft mouth as Marlowe clenched his fists. The sound of the tiny bells jingling on the bridle brought him down to earth, with his heart thumping. Of course this wasn’t about him. This was about a murderer and stopping him from killing again.

The scholar strained his ears in the darkness and could hear nothing except the diminishing sounds of the carriage, making its way back to Cambridge and safety, if safety lay anywhere in these days. The voice in his ear was quiet as voices went, but sounded to Marlowe’s strained nerves like a pistol shot.

‘Good evening, Master Machiavel,’ Steane breathed in his ear. ‘Taking the air?’

Marlowe swallowed, but his voice came out sounding cooler than he felt. ‘Doctor Steane. May I take this opportunity to congratulate you on your nuptials. Too excited to sleep, I imagine.’

The man chuckled. He liked a good adversary. Eleanor hadn’t counted, not at her death or ever. Ralph Whitingside had given him a few nasty moments, but the greedy sot would drink anything in the right shaped bottle and so that had been easy. Bromerick was such a crawler and when he had started talking about the journal, an inn was the natural place to do it and tipping the tincture into his ale had been the work of a minute. Then, it had all started to slip.

‘Too excited indeed, Master Machiavel. My bride is . . . modest in her needs and I find I have time on my hands.’ He looked at Marlowe’s horse appraisingly. ‘You have a nice mount, I see. He didn’t come from just inside the door, I’ll wager.’

‘Nor did yours,’ Marlowe countered. ‘He’s a good horse, but he will be still done up in the morning. And don’t forget, I have witnesses that you left the house tonight.’

For the first time, Steane’s gaze flickered. ‘I don’t think you do,’ he said finally. ‘Who else was abroad at that time?’

‘Sir Roger Manwood and Dr John Dee,’ Marlowe said. ‘They are rousing the house as we speak.’

‘And for what?’ Steane spat. ‘To tell them that I am out for a ride and that you have chased me like a maniac with, no doubt, the intention of stealing my purse, or worse.’

‘No. To tell them that you are a murderer, at least three times over. More if Doctor Thirling still succumbs to the poison.’

Steane’s head snapped up. ‘Might he?’ he asked. Then, sensing his mistake: ‘I certainly hope that Doctor Thirling recovers. It would be a great loss to King’s if he should not.’

Marlowe pulled at the left hand rein and turned his horse’s head, reaching as he did so for Steane’s rein. ‘I’ll keep you company back to Madingley, then,’ he said. ‘You can tell me all about your plans for your bishopric. Bath and Wells, did I hear?’

Steane yanked his rein out of Marlowe’s hand. ‘We’ll do no such thing, Master Marlowe,’ he hissed. The tip of a dagger pricked Marlowe’s thigh as the horses pressed together. ‘I think the best thing we could do would be to dismount – very slowly – and then you will walk with me into the woods over there. Then –’ he reached round behind him and unhooked a coil of rope from the back of his saddle – ‘you will loop this over a branch and, if you would be so good, you will hang yourself with it. I had earmarked this rope for Thirling, but it will do as well for you. Another sad inquest for Sir Edward Winterton to get wrong, another suicide among the Parker scholars.’ He jabbed the dagger a little harder and Marlowe felt hot blood run down the inside of his leg and soak into the saddle. ‘But hardly surprising with the rumours flying about you in your college and indeed all over the University. The shame of it. Sodomy in Corpus. Hanging is too good for you, they’ll say. But never mind, you will be dead and from what I also hear, you will have no soul to go to Purgatory or anywhere else, so not too much harm done. You’re very quiet, Master Machiavel.’

‘Doctor Steane,’ Marlowe said smoothly, ‘my death is neither here nor there, in the scheme of things. I would rather live, that I will allow, but if I have to die to prove you a murderer, then so be it.’

Suddenly, the dagger was at his ribs. ‘And how will your suicide prove me a murderer?’

‘I told you, I have witnesses to the whole thing, you leaving Madingley, me following. There is Dee, Manwood, the stable lad. There were probably a few drunks sitting outside the inn who would testify to our chase. Are you going to poison and drown the whole world, Doctor Steane?’

‘Damn you, Marlowe,’ Steane snarled, jumping from his horse on to Marlowe, his weight, not skill, carrying them both to the ground. The startled animals jolted away as the pair rolled in the grass. Steane’s knife flew into the darkness and his hands struggled in the excess material of his wedding clothes to find Marlowe’s throat.

‘You’re very strong, Dr Steane,’ Marlowe hissed. ‘But you are rather older than me and I think in a straight fight, I will surely win.’

‘But this isn’t a straight fight, Master Marlowe, is it?’ Steane gasped. He was straddling the scholar, his arm pressing down on his windpipe. He weighed almost half as much again as Marlowe and had taken him off his horse with Marlowe underneath him. And he knew from experience how to choke the life out of another human being. Marlowe wriggled and twisted like a fish on a line, scrabbling with his hands in the dirt to find anything he could use as a weapon. The field had not been ploughed that year and had been left to meadow, so not even a sod was hard enough to do any damage. But the soft soil could be his weapon even so. Gathering up as big a handful as he could, Marlowe raised his hand and rubbed the dirt, with the broken flints and shards of old corn stems, into Steane’s eyes. It wouldn’t blind him, but if it just made him raise his arm for a second, Marlowe’s youth and agility would do the rest.

The Fellow howled as a broken snail-shell scraped the cornea of his left eye and he let go with an oath. As quick as a flash, Marlowe had wriggled free, unsheathing his dagger as he did so.

‘Now, Dr Steane,’ he said, moving closer, the weaving blade catching the light as he twisted it in his hand, ever closer to the man’s throat. ‘It will be a long walk still into town, so I think we should start now.’ He reached down to haul the man to his feet.

‘I don’t think I want to go to town with you, Marlowe,’ Steane grated, still rubbing his eye. ‘I want you dead.’ He grabbed the scholar’s proffered hand and yanked down hard. Marlowe’s dagger pricked the older man’s sleeve and blood spurted, black under the moon. ‘Oh, oh, see what the wicked Machiavel has done to me?’ he shouted to the stars. Then he turned his face back to Marlowe and his eyes shone. ‘I think that the coroner’s jury at your inquest will be very sympathetic to see me, a Bishop-elect, sitting in the court, cradling my injuries. All I had done was to go for a ride to calm away the stresses of the day, when suddenly, I was set upon by a known roisterer, drunkard, pederast and liar.’ Suddenly, there was a second dagger glinting in his hand; in another second the point was at Marlowe’s throat. ‘Drop the knife,’ he growled.

‘Not very bishoply behaviour, some might say,’ Marlowe said tightly, trying not to move his throat too much. He let the dagger slip from his grasp.

‘Hmm, perhaps not. We’ll see when this night ends who has the sympathy, Marlowe,’ Steane said. ‘Now –’ he whacked each horse on the rump and they wheeled towards the road, one heading for Madingley, the other for the town where its owner waited patiently – ‘as I think I have already explained, we will go to those woods over there, where you will be so good as to hang yourself.’

‘I know when I’m beaten,’ Marlowe said dully and, turning, started to make his way to the woods.

‘And I know that means you’re not,’ Steane said. ‘Even so, I will not tie you up. You have been a challenge, Master Marlowe, and so for that reason we will walk along like old friends, talking as we walk. I shall enjoy that because the life I have been living and, I fear, the life I have yet to live, is a lonely one.’ He made an expansive movement that pricked Marlowe’s throat painfully and made a small trickle of blood run into his soiled ruff. ‘I will tell you the story of my life, shall I?’

‘I would prefer you not to,’ Marlowe said. ‘As a playwright, I might feel the need to use it some day and then where would that leave us all?’

‘I would enjoy watching that, Master Marlowe; what a pity you won’t live to write it. Let me tell you a story then, as though it is some other man’s life. Then tell me if you think it would make a good play. But keep walking. We are nowhere near the trees yet.’

Marlowe trudged on, his mind whirring. It must be possible to get away from the older, heavier man, but it would perhaps be wise to hear his story first. He would need the details to prove his case, when this was all over and done.

‘Once upon a time – you must correct me, playwright, if I use the wrong words – once upon a time there was a very young priest. He had known that he would be a priest almost from when he could talk. All second sons in his family became priests. It was just the way of things. If there were two daughters, the second would become a nun. So, one son to breed, one daughter to look after the parents when they were old, one son to be a priest and make his mother proud, one daughter never to be seen again. Any other children were extra, but in my family there were only two sons.’

‘This story is very slow,’ Marlowe said, carefully. ‘The audience would have thrown some rotten fruit by now.’

‘Patience, playwright, patience. Then, in this family, a terrible thing happened. The eldest son died, leaving just the priest to do all those things; to breed, to care and to make his mother proud. But before he had to decide whether to renounce the priesthood, a marvellous thing happened which solved everyone’s dilemmas. The boy-king Edward came to the throne and priests could marry. It was a wonderful solution, especially since a beautiful girl lived just over the hill and the young priest had loved her and she had loved him since they were children.’

‘So they married,’ Marlowe added. ‘And they all lived happily ever after. That play’s too short. No jester? No lover dying from a broken heart? You would need another one to fill the time, or the audience would want their money back.’

‘Ah, but wait. This is real life, so the story is not over. The priest and his lovely bride were married, but no sooner had they done so than the king died and his sister Mary came to the throne. The fires were stoked again, men were burned as heretics, priests must be celibate. There were many ways of managing this situation, many left the priesthood or just carried on as before, with wives become housekeepers and no one any the wiser. But this young priest and his bride were very devout. They saw the world in black and white whereas you and I, Master Machiavel, we know that it is all grey, don’t we, like cats in the night?’