License to Quill (16 page)

What sorcery is this?
the bard wondered.

 … made and deuised (as is to be thought) by craft and art of the diuell …

Shakespeare's eyes hovered over those last two words.

the diuell.

“The devil,” he spoke aloud.

 

Chapter XVII

“Who the Devil…?”

“Svejàte,”
the dragoman ordered in Venetian—“Wake up.”

“Oh, it's you,” Marlowe mindlessly mumbled with sticky lips. “Not tonight.”

The poet rolled in his blankets and went back to sleep while his well-dressed guardian shoved the doge's naked nephew out the door. After handing some silver coins to the brothel madam, the dragoman locked himself in with Marlowe and swept through the room via candlelight.
“Wake up!”
the shadow whispered with added urgency.

Instead of rising, the sleeping poet burped, snored, and farted.

With his patience evaporating, the towering figure seized his friend by his filthy hair and pulled him out of his even filthier bed.

“Fine, fine! I'm awake! I'm awake!”

The dragoman dropped the drunk poet. “We need to talk.”

A naked and dehydrated Marlowe struggled to stand on the brothel's grimy floor. “Didn't we talk the other … day?” he asked before collapsing onto all fours. It felt like the city was sinking faster than the poet had gotten used to.

“That was three weeks ago.”

“Really? It's been that long?” Marlowe lifted his head and raised his eyebrows even though both his eyes were shut. “Is it still February?”

The dragoman gently helped Marlowe up and seated him on his bed. Once the inebriate was steadied, his gigantic attendant pulled over the same clean-looking chair from their previous exchange. The dragoman flattened the fine fabric of his
zhiduo
robe—Ming dynasty—and sat within whisper range of the departed playwright, albeit far away enough to keep his silk from touching the stinky bed. “How many people know who you are?” the figure asked.

“Lots!” Marlowe smiled. “I'm more popular than the pope around here. You know it!”

“I do.” His friend exhaled. “And that gives me pause. How many people know your name? Here. In Venice.”

The dragoman's tone and stare were beginning to upset poor Marlowe, who by now was wrestling with the sensation that the room was both spinning and sinking. “Nobody, Drago! I haven't told anyone my real name since I got here. Honestly! It's the one thing I know I can't do.”

“You told
me
who you were.”

“Yes! But … that was because I love you! We're like brothers, you and I. I knew I could trust you!”

“You told me who you were less than an hour after we met.”

“Drago…” the poet pleaded. “My brother! I—” Marlowe suddenly grabbed his friend's garments and made an unpleasant face. He looked like he was about to vomit straight into Drago's silken lap.

Prepared, the dragoman moved quickly. “Drink this,” he offered, producing a glass vial from his robe.

Marlowe stared with confusion at the whirling bottle before him. “What is it?” He reached for the vial several times without success, so the dragoman mercifully grabbed Marlowe's hand and placed the vial in it. The flask was warm and filled with a mysterious black liquid.

“It's medicine,” said the dragoman. “Please drink it.”

Marlowe grimaced when he uncorked the bottle, but his expression changed once he lifted the vessel to his lips. The fluid was fragrant, returning life to the poet's senses with a pleasant aroma akin of roasted chestnuts and fresh caramel. Intrigued, Marlowe took a sip. The mysterious drink slipped down his parched throat, soothing it while restoring warmth to his cold fingers and toes. As Marlowe moistened his mouth, a swift alertness seized his mind. Enchanted, Marlowe swallowed some more. His stomach settled, the room steadied, and his pounding headache began to dissipate. But then, something strange happened. Something the late poet had never experienced. A burst of energy shot back and forth between Marlowe's brain and body like lightning. It started as gently as a wave, but then engulfed him with the enormity of an ocean. Marlowe's pulse jumped and his pupils dilated. His imagination screamed obscenities. Addicted, Marlowe guzzled the rest of the black stuff as if it were mother's milk. “What is this?” he demanded.

“Kahveh,”
his tall friend replied.

It was the first coffee Christopher Marlowe had ever tasted. “I need more of this.”

The dragoman smirked. “I will provide it when you require it. For now, all I need in return is your honesty.” The speaker adjusted his boxlike
si-fang pingding jin
hat and leaned forward. “Am I the only person in Venice who knows your real name?”

“More
kahfey
,” Marlowe mispronounced.

The dragoman furrowed his brow.

“Drago,
kahfey
!” Marlowe begged. “Please
!
”

His tall friend produced one more vial from his robes. “This is the last of it.”

“You're greater than God!” Marlowe praised as he downed the black stuff. As the miraculous elixir went back to work, the poet closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. “Infinite pleasure, and in so small a bottle,” he mused.

“Cristo?”

Marlowe's eyes opened. “Oh yes. You're the only one who knows that I'm here. I swear it. Whenever I meet someone, I always tell them something different; whatever makes them drop their pants or share a few secrets.” Marlowe was hoping to get a smile out of his friend with this aside. Instead, the dragoman's eyes narrowed and the dead poet's smile departed.

“One of my contacts put me in touch with an anonymous client this afternoon,” said his opposite. “You know I don't work with anonymous parties, but I trusted my source on this one. The client asked me to hire someone for an assassination.”

The poet tilted his head. “I thought you were out of that business.”

The dragoman's brown eyes bored into Marlowe's. “As I said, I was asked to hire someone for an assassination.”

“Oh?” the poet chirped, feeling somewhat embarrassed. “Well, I imagine they came to the right person! So, who are they after?”

“Christopher Marlowe.”

The poet nodded, but then jumped out of his bed in terror. “No…” he gasped while backing away from his ascending friend. As the dragoman lunged at Marlowe, the poet's eyes shifted onto the two empty vials on his bed. Marlowe fell against the wall and grabbed his throat. He had the look of death in his eyes and was only seconds away from fainting.

“Quiet, quiet!” the dragoman ordered. “This client didn't want me to kill you! She was recruiting me to hire
you
to murder someone else.”

“Crazy Mary of mercy!” Marlowe gasped as his friend seated him back on his bed. The poet's heart was pounding so hard that his eardrums throbbed with each beat. “Who do they want me to kill?”

“She would not say.”

“Then how am I…” At last it registered. “Wait a minute—a
woman
?”

The dragoman nodded.

Marlowe stared off in disbelief. “O me!”

“Oh yes,” his friend agreed. “O
you
.” The dragoman returned to his seat and folded his arms, allowing Marlowe to absorb the severity of the situation.

The poet propped himself up with his arms, aghast, and still completely oblivious to his nakedness. “Do you realize what this means, my friend?”

The dragoman raised his eyebrows. “You tell me.”

“This means…” The poet slowly rose to his feet. “That you and I are going to be
rich
! Rich as king—nay, pirates! As rich as pirates!” Marlowe spun toward his friend with his eyes alight with ideas. “This is it, Drago! Our ultimate prize! Our Golden Fleece! All we have to do is figure out who this wench wants me to murder, sell her out to who she wants dead, and then get drunk as popes off both dullards! Oh, my friend, this is a perfect arrangement! Let's celebrate with some
kahfey
!”

The dragoman's face dropped in horror.

Marlowe found his friend's reaction sobering. “No
kahfey
?”

“Please sit,” he instructed. “And cover yourself.”

The nude poet obeyed.

“There is no reason why this woman should know you exist, never mind that you are alive and friends with me.” The poet smiled, flattered, and the dragoman continued. “If what you say is true, that you never shared your identity with anyone other than myself, then we are entering dangerous waters with this woman. What she knows could destroy you.”

“But …
money
!” Marlowe pleaded. “Is this not better than what we described earlier? These are them! The killer women! Just like in Belgrade and Istantinople.”

“Those women killed their targets themselves. This is something different. Anyone can hire murderers, Cristoforo, and there are much more seasoned killers in this city than you.”

“That's not true,” Marlowe protested. “I have more seasoning than the East and West Indies!”

“You are out of shape
and
out of season. You have the balance of a sinking ship in a hurricane. Your reflexes are slow, your instincts poor, and your mind has become a mass grave to past wisdom. You possess none of the desired qualities for any sort of assassin, yet to this nameless, faceless woman, you are somehow champion of the Venetian underworld. I find that suspicious and even more dangerous. Especially since, if what you tell me is true, the only way this woman could have learned of your whereabouts was from someone on your home island. England.”

“Impossible!” Marlowe scoffed. “Aside from you and me, only two other people know I'm here. They're reliable and trustworthy. They would never betray me!”

The dragoman was unmoved. “Are you so sure of that?”

The poet scowled. “Of course! I wouldn't be here today if it weren't for them. They were my dearest friends in the world until I met you!”

The dragoman nodded incredulously. “And who were they?”

For the moment, Marlowe was hesitant. “I told you about the one.” He paused. “My former master, Thomas—”

Marlowe's inquisitor raised his hand, silencing the poet. “And the other man?”

“I … I shouldn't tell you his name.”

The dragoman's gaze intensified. “Tell me.”

Marlowe lowered his eyes. Feeling vulnerable, he covered his nipples with his bedsheet.

“Was it the friend you introduced to the Dark Lady? The one with the sonnets?”

Marlowe refused to answer.

“Cristo,” the dragoman whispered, “I need to know if your life is in danger. I need to know who to trust. Please tell me your friend's name.”

The saddened poet at last mustered the courage to look the dragoman in the eyes. “He would never betray me. Never! Especially now that I'm dead to London. My friend has supplanted me from this planet.” Marlowe whimpered. “That's all I have to say.”

Satisfied, the dragoman leaned back in his chair. He was impressed. Even while helpless, distressed, and cornered after a night of excessive drinking and decadence, the late Christopher Marlowe was capable of keeping details about his former life a secret—and from his closest ally in Venice, no less. There was no doubt left in the dragoman's mind: Marlowe had successfully kept his identity from the Venetians. The situation was indeed as dangerous as the towering shade anticipated. “Whoever this woman is,” the dragoman continued, “she is clearly well connected. That puts her at an advantage over us. You could be walking into a trap by responding to her, my friend.”

Marlowe shrugged. “We work with people like her all the time.”

“No, we don't.
I
do. And you work for me whenever I need something from the Biblioteca Marciana. Naturally, political gossip is always welcome, but not when it is about you and your former life in England. If you were to meet with this woman, she will know your greatest secret. She could tax you for all you're worth, my friend. Keeping such a secret could cost you a lot more than your gold. She could force you to do this assassination for her, no matter what the danger. And then another. And another. You could be her slave and prisoner for the rest of your afterlife.”

The poet's mood lifted. “I actually like the sound of that!”

The dragoman's eyes fell to his friend's bedsheets. “Cover yourself.”

“Oh.” Marlowe complied. “Sorry. Well, if this she-beast is indeed as poisonous as you paint her, then tell her to fly on her broomstick and find someone else! Tell her I'm out of that game. The only foes I lay dead are those who are brave enough to join me in bed!” The poet patted his mattress, which emitted an unusual squeak. Surprised, Marlowe looked down and drew his hand back.

The dragoman shook his head. “You have to meet her.”

“What? You just said that meeting her would be bad—for some reason.”

Frustrated, the dragoman pushed himself up to full height. “You fail to grasp the danger surrounding you. When I met this lady, she refused to tell me her name or even show me her face. The entire time I spoke with her, the woman wore a leather mask. She requested to meet you in person so you could kill whatever target she names. That could be anyone! It could be the doge, the pope in Rome … she could even ask you to murder me! I find it troubling that she would share so much information with me when she could have requested to meet you under your alias, or perhaps recruit you for something less dangerous. I might have permitted that, but the methods she's using guarantees that you will meet her in person. She's extorting you, Cristo, coercing you into her service, and she is leaving no room for error. You must meet with this woman, and when you do, you must be prepared to do whatever is necessary to keep what she knows about you a secret.”