A Prisoner in Malta (35 page)

“You amaze me, Robert,” Marlowe said. “If I am a weapon, even one that cuts both ways, you have but few choices: kill me, use me, or put me back in my sheath.”

“Your sheath being Cambridge,” Parsons allowed.

“He could be of use to Carier this morning,” Allen suggested.

Parsons's eyes shot to Allen, but just as he was about to speak, there was a soft knock on the door. Without waiting for an answer, a small dark man entered. Marlowe recognized him as the man who had held the cocked pistol in the crypt tavern where he'd met Allen. The man moved quickly to Parsons without looking at anyone in the room. He whispered several sentences, turned, and flew away.

“There, I am assured of your sympathies,” Parsons said, his voice greatly changed. “Mr. Marlowe, you will forgive my reservations. I am about to take over a country and alter the course of history. I may be permitted a bit of caution.”

“By
caution
you mean
discourtesy,
” Marlowe answered with a flourish of his hand as he let go of the hilt of his dagger, “but no matter. Let us get on about our business.”

“Right you are,” Allen snapped crisply. “Mr. Marlowe, I think you will go to Fulham Palace; Frizer will take you there and give you details along the way. You'll meet Carier there and you, instead of Frizer, will escort him to Whitehall, owing to your relationships with Walsingham and his daughter. Carier must deliver the packet to our lady-in-waiting because he is the one she knows. After that, you and Carier will return to Cambridge, schoolboys returned from London to sit for examinations. Clear?”

“More than clear,” Marlowe said, making the effort to smile. “And by the by, did you pick Benjamin for this task
only
because you were to use him as a carrier?”

“Good-bye, Mr. Marlowe,” Allen said, smiling. “We shall not meet again.”

“You won't see our business to its fruition?” Marlowe asked as casually as he could manage to.

“I'm away with the tide,” Allen said absently.

Before Marlowe could pursue that notion, Frizer rumbled to a more-or-less standing position and stumbled toward the door.

“Come on,” he mumbled, not looking at anyone.

Frizer took Marlowe's arm and dragged him from the room.

Down stairs and out into the night, Marlowe pulled his cloak around him. The night had turned cold and the moon had hidden once more.

As they walked toward the home of the Bishops of London, Frizer explained the basics of the plan to Marlowe. Frizer showed Marlowe a small packet, which he referred to as “an unction of a mountebank,” the poison which was to kill the Queen. They were to give it to Carier, who would deliver it to the Palace. Carier, a bookish, pasty boy, was in need of an escort, a protector. It was supposed to have been Frizer; now it was to be Marlowe. Carier would deliver the poison to a certain lady-in-waiting, who would take it to the Queen's private chambers and slip it into her wine that very morning. Marlowe and Carier would be gone by then, on the road to Cambridge. But Marlowe realized, as he listened to the plan, why Carier had been chosen. He would absorb blame if anything went wrong, keeping Parsons and Allen one step removed.

That realization did nothing to assuage Marlowe's primary fear: that Frances was dead.

*   *   *

When they arrived at a hidden garden path in Fulham Palace, Frizer went silent. He paused under the shadow of an arbor. Marlowe stared at his profile, almost impossible to see in the dark of the moon. Who was he? He was Walsingham's man, but he'd brought Carier to London. He worked for both sides. Where were his true loyalties?

Marlowe decided that he was a man without moral principles, owing his allegiance more to money than to any cause. Good. That made him easier to deal with.

Frizer gave out five short whistles, the nesting call of a mourning dove.

Immediately it was answered back.

It was a good signal. Dawn was coming on. Soon there would be real doves in the garden—and mourning in the air, if Marlowe did not succeed in preventing the death of his Queen. Fate had been kind in a single regard; it had made Pygott's true murderer a part of the conspirators' plan. Marlowe would save England and his own skin with one simple action: bring Carier to justice.

Carier appeared. His skin was so white that it reflected every bit of starlight it could find in the wind. The veins in his face pulsed blue, and Marlowe had a sudden urge to cut those veins, force a confession, and take revenge for Frances's death. His hands were shaking with the effort of holding himself back.

Carier was dressed, foolishly, in silver and pale blue, a good costume for court, but one that prohibited any secrecy.

Frizer handed Carier the small packet wrapped in a bright scarf, tied with a bow. Carier took it but his eyes were on Marlowe. His jaw was slack, giving his face the distinct aspect of a village idiot.

“Is—is that Christopher Marlowe?” Carier stammered.

Marlowe remained silent.

“He's to take you to Court now,” Frizer whispered. “He's been—
affiliated
with Lady Frances Walsingham.”

Frizer had managed to make the word
affiliated
imply so many things that Marlowe was at once impressed with the dexterity of nuance and enraged by the suggestion.

“I see,” was all that Carier would say.

Marlowe's mind traveled like lightning from thought to thought. He could kill Frizer then and there, and turn Carier in to the authorities. But that would scatter the conspirators. Many would get away, including Bess Throckmorton. Best, at the moment, to continue the game, though his hand still twitched in the direction of his dagger.

“I'll leave you to it, then,” Frizer went on. “Just head on past the watch house, through the yard. That'll put you on the way to Whitehall without being seen.”

Then he took Marlowe by the arm and put his lips close to Marlowe's ear.

“This idiot,” Frizer said, inclining his head slightly in the direction of Carier, “he don't know what's what. He thinks he's taking a gift to Bess, from her father. He has no idea what's in it, nor does he know the rest of that lot at Fulham. He's a bit of a sacrificial lamb, you might say. You can use that to your advantage if you get into trouble.”

With that, Frizer slipped off into the last of night.

Marlowe smiled at the confirmation of his suspicions, even as he found it cold as winter: if Carier was captured, he would continue to play the idiot because it was the only part he knew. He could give nothing away. He didn't realize that he would be caught; he was unaware that Frances was dead. Marlowe had a momentary sensation of pity for the boy. It passed almost immediately.

“You know Frances Walsingham?” Carier said, failing to keep his voice down. “I met her once at a party, at Coughton Hall. I don't know her well, but she's very charming, don't you agree?”

Marlowe put an index finger to his lips. Carier nodded.

“It is less than an hour before dawn,” Marlowe whispered. “We should go.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Carier agreed sheepishly.

Past a hedge of roses and around a bend in the path, they neared the watch house, lit with torches. It was a small stone building, not attached to any other. There were open windows and a single door, and smoke drifting upward from the chimney. Several men talking, one laughing. Marlowe and Carier would have to be silent as they passed.

Then, as if struck by an arrow, Marlowe heard her voice.

“I'm thirsty,” Frances moaned.

Marlowe's blood stopped pumping. His entire body felt numb. He tried to think, but his brain stopped working.

“Wait here,” Marlowe commanded Carier.

Without any further consideration, Marlowe drew his rapier and his dagger. Abandoning all subtlety or stealth, he raced forward, kicked in the door of the small stone building, and found five men sitting around a table, drinking and playing at cards. Frances sat in a corner, bound to a wooden chair, blindfolded.

Before any of the men could stand, Marlowe jumped onto the tabletop. He thrust his rapier at the youngest man first but a musket went off like thunder. The ball grazed Marlowe's calf. The pain brought his mind into complete focus.

He whirled in the direction of the blast, flailing with his rapier. It caught the barrel of the gun and knocked it to the floor. Then he leapt, kicking the underside of another man's chin as he went, sending that man flying backward.

Marlowe winced but managed to land on his good leg right next to Frances. With a single flick of his dagger he cut loose her bonds. Her hands flew to the blindfold and tore it away. She stared into Marlowe's eyes.

“If I have to keep rescuing you over and over again,” he said to her, “I'll never finish college.”

He handed her his rapier and turned immediately to face the men in the room. Frances was on her feet in the next instant, rapier leading her forward.

The young man Marlowe had stabbed was lying on the floor moaning; the one he had kicked was unconscious in a corner. That left three: the man who'd fired the musket, an older man with rapier and dagger, and a tough with two knives. The musketeer had already retrieved his weapon and was fumbling, trying to reload it. The older man guarded him, knowing that once the musket was reloaded the intruder and the woman would be easier to subdue. The tough, heedless of the greater situation, jumped like a rabbit directly at Frances, daggers out.

Marlowe slashed the tough's arm from elbow to wrist and Frances stabbed the boy's side as she moved out of the path of his blades. The boy fell to the floor, bleeding and gasping.

“How's your rapier arm?” Marlowe asked Frances, breathing hard.

“What?” she asked, staring the older man in the eye.

“You've been tied up,” Marlowe explained loudly, “and I want to know if you're able to kill that man by yourself or if you need help.”

Reading Marlowe's mind, Frances smiled.

“I'd like very much to kill him myself,” she said. “He was rude to me.”

With that Marlowe cocked his arm, held his breath, and threw his dagger. It cut the air as it flew directly across the musketeer's hand and stuck there. The man screamed, dropped his weapon, and stumbled toward the door, hoping for escape.

“Go ahead then,” Marlowe encouraged Frances. “Kill him. We have things to do.”

Not waiting for a response, Marlowe slid around the table and launched himself after the musketeer, who had just achieved the doorway.

Frances sighed and lunged forward, rapier point first.

The older man batted the rapier to one side with a single flourish.

“Get help,” he said steadily to the musketeer.

Before the man could obey, Marlowe grabbed his hair, pulled him backward, and retrieved his dagger.

Frances had already pivoted to her right and had the older man off guard. He was solid, wary, and possibly more dangerous than anticipated.

He was dressed in a simple guard's uniform, but his face displayed a calm intelligence that belied a position as a late-night guard at the bishop's palace. He was someone else's man.

Holding his knife at the musketeer's throat, drawing the merest trickle of blood, Marlowe urged Frances.

“Are you going to kill him or not?” he asked her.

Frances smiled. “I want to play with him first.”

“We don't have time,” Marlowe insisted.

In a flash Frances dropped to her knees, sliding forward across the stone floor, her silken dress tearing. At the same time, she jabbed. The point of the rapier caught the older man's midsection, near the stomach. She leaned into it, and the sword moved upward, farther into the man's body.

The man gasped, eyes wide. He was still looking at the place in the room where Frances was supposed to have been. He thought she'd disappeared.

Rolling to her left side, Frances withdrew the rapier, and with a second roll she came to her feet, bent low, and prepared to strike again.

The older man was still at a loss. Frances danced forward with a wide, sweeping flourish of her blade, and disarmed the man. He sat down at the table, nodding.

“I'm killed,” he said softly. “By a woman.”

Frances put the point of the rapier into the man's ear and leaned forward, chin out.

“You're killed by Frances Walsingham,” she said as if she were spitting. “Now I'm going to run this blade through your brains and hang a sign around your corpse that says, ‘killed by a girl of sixteen.'”

“Frances,” Marlowe cautioned.

She was still staring at the man, her face nearly violet.

“He was
rude
to me,” she repeated, pushing the blade ever-so-slightly into the man's ear.

“Have you learned your lesson, sir?” Marlowe called out.

The man blinked.

Marlowe let go of the musketeer, pushed him forward, and bashed him in the back of the head with the hilt of his dagger.

“All right,” he said, “I want my rapier back.”

Frances glared at the older man. His eyes were unfocused. Blood soaked his uniform.

“Frances,” Marlowe said sweetly, “let him be.”

The fire in her eyes abated, and with a single motion she took the point of the rapier away from the man's ear and tossed the weapon to Marlowe, hilt first. The older man slumped forward, his head gently knocking the top of the table. It was impossible to tell whether or not he was dead.

“We really have to go,” Marlowe said. “I've got Benjamin Carier in the garden, and he has the poison that would kill our sovereign. He wants to deliver it this morning.”

Frances smiled and headed for the door.

“Carier. You found him? You're getting good at this business.”

“Providence more than I prevailed,” Marlowe said, sheathing his blades.

They both moved crisply out of the guardhouse and into the darkness.