License to Quill (28 page)

The assassin shrugged. “Very well. I know that you and Walsingham had a nice chat with each other, and … somehow, you walked away the victor.”

“Do you know what we talked about?”

“Old man, I did
not
come here to hold your hand and reminisce about your younger years. I came here for information: Who tried to kill me, and why did those same people want Drago dead?”

The old man smiled. “And what if I told you that your friend is still alive?”

Marlowe's face froze. “Say that again?”

Roberto raised his eyebrows and turned his head, looking out the window. Down in his garden, he could see the two birds that had been chirping. “There comes a point in everyone's life when they look back on the road they've taken and question whether that was the path their life was meant for, or whether a wrong turn led them astray. Most people confront this quandary midway upon their journey. I, alas, was not so fortunate. I only came across it recently.”

“Tell me what you said
before
all that, old man, and I might let you die of old age.”

The senator looked back to Marlowe. “If all you have to threaten me with is death, then you are seventy-three years too late.”

“If you insist.” Marlowe clenched his dagger and stepped forward, prepared to claim the old man's life.

“If you kill me, you will never see your friend again.”

Marlowe put his shining blade to Roberto's neck. “I don't expect to.”

“But you will wonder whether you could have. It will haunt you every day, every minute, every heartbeat that you have left until you are as old as I am: so old that the entire world you lived in is just a memory. However, you will not remember the sweeter things: your mother's voice, a lover's laugh … You will not even remember your dear friend's face. However, you will remember this moment: the moment when you turned your back on him. And with your dying breath, your last words will be: ‘What if…?'”

Marlowe gritted his teeth as his blade trembled against the old man's skin. However, he could not cut it. In doing so, Marlowe knew he would be killing Drago.

The poet looked into Roberto's eyes. “Is my friend alive?”

The old man nodded. “Yes.”

“How could you possibly know that!”

“Because he told me in a letter.”

Marlowe nervously turned his head, searching the room for parchment. “Where is it?”

“I burned it.”

The poet's eyes rekindled with hated. “Then you are a liar!”

The old man shook his head. “Not to you.”

“Yes you are! You lied to me, the dragoman, Walsingham—”

“No, no, and no.”

Enraged, Marlowe shoved the man onto the floor before he risked killing him. The poet panted angrily and threw his dagger, impaling it on the bedroom door. “How on earth did a troll like you ever outwit a man like Francis Walsingham!”

Roberto coughed from his dusty floor. “That…” he groaned, “was one of the greatest tricks he ever pulled.” The senator slowly pushed himself back onto his feet while addressing his would-be killer. “When Walsingham confronted me those many years ago, he never threatened me. He did not need to. I knew from the moment he sought me out that one look from him would mean my death. I had no loyalty to Tuscany, and all my sacred faith had failed me. So, I told him everything, all my plans and schemes, to save my life. I was on my knees, begging him for mercy.” The old man looked down and dusted himself. “I was convinced Walsingham would kill me, but what he did instead was extraordinary.”

Marlowe sniffled, and then he sneezed. “How extraordinary?” he asked, rubbing his nose.

The senator stood tall, resting his knuckles against his windowsill to keep his balance. “Francis Walsingham did not want me dead. Instead, he asked me to continue my conspiracy. He wanted it to unfold, uninterrupted, drawing in as many people as it could. He wanted every corrupted citizen in the country to be a part of it so he could catch them all at once.”

“Your conspiracy to kill the queen?” The poet gasped. “He let it happen?”

Roberto nodded. “Rather than face some unforeseen danger in the future, Francis allowed my plot to continue until the time was best to stop it. He cultivated it like poisoned fruit. It was smart of him. And he was friendly about it, too.”

“
Friendly
?” Marlowe laughed. “Francis Walsingham? Friendly?”

“We maintained a correspondence for many years and helped each other in our own ways. It kept us ahead of the larger powers trying to manipulate us into war. Unfortunately,” Roberto sighed, “as I got older, I realized I spent too much time abroad when I should have been here in Tuscany. The Medici have turned this lovely land into yet another squabbling monarchy. The people weep for the Florentine Republic that only men as old as me are sons of. It is the reason I joined the senate. I want to give the people their country back.”

Marlowe narrowed his eyes. “And what of the Medici? Were they behind this massacre?”

Roberto smiled and shook his head. “No. But as with Walsingham, they allowed it to happen.”

Marlowe grimaced and looked away, at which point he noticed his dagger sticking out of the door. He walked over and extracted it. “You said my friend is alive. How did that happen?” The poet sheathed his blade. “And where is he?”

“Your friend surrendered himself to the doge and used his wealth and wits to secure his release.”

“That's very vague of you,” Marlowe scrutinized. “How do I know you're telling me the truth?”

“The truth is he was vague about it!” Roberto parried. “Surely you can respect him withholding information from me. The only other detail I know is that he left Venice on a boat bound for the New World.”

The poet's heart sank. “Well,” he sighed, “one way or another, I…” Marlowe's voice faltered. “I will never see my friend again.”

The man who bested Walsingham allowed a moment to let this fate sink in.

Until … “Not necessarily,” Roberto tempted. “Your friend's journey is long, and he should be arriving in Messina shortly. A simple message tied to a pigeon could arrive in time to redirect him to your location.”

Marlowe's watery eyes brightened. “Is that possible?”

The senator smiled, narrowed his eyes, and slightly raised his chin. He then gently grazed his cleanly shaven cheek with his fingernails, the whole time keeping his littlest finger raised.

The poet got the message. “What do you want from me?”

“There are rumors going through the senate that the Medici sold their souls to the devil to secure the papacy. Whether it be true or not, my people could use this information to bring down the House of Medici once and for all. It could help us rally the people so that we may forever banish them from this city. For that to happen, and for you to see your friend again, I must ask that you go to Rome.”

Marlowe's jaw dropped. “And do what?” he scoffed. “Assassinate the new pope? They're supposed to be crowning him today!”

“I am not asking for murder. All I require is your assistance. You say you obtained information for your friend, yes? I would like you to do the same for me. Come with me to Rome and find me evidence of this conspiracy so that men like me can die knowing that we liberated Italy from her enemies.”

Marlowe bit his lower lip. “That sounds too dangerous. I was only lucky to survive in Venice. And what of Drago? Where is he in all this?”

“Your friend can meet us in Rome! We can ride south as he sails north. It will guarantee that you see him in the shortest time.”

Marlowe took a breath and thought this over. He always wanted to return to Rome, and he still remembered the city well. “I will need some equipment.”

The old man's eyes lit up. “I have plenty! Here!” Roberto led Marlowe to a nearby room filled with chests and cabinets. He threw them open to reveal a vast arsenal of Italian weaponry: broadswords, halberds, dussacks, stilettos, harquebuses, and wheellock pistols. Marlowe even saw a ribauldequin and a lantern shield propped against the wall. “I see you're prepared for everything,” the poet complimented Roberto di Ridolfi.

“These are relics from my younger years. If you assist me, then they are yours.”

“And what is that?” asked Marlowe once he came to what looked like a suit made out of leather. The outfit had large, round lenses in place of eyeholes and a mess of tubes sticking out of its mouth.

“Ah! You should be familiar with that one,” the old man teased. “Leonardo developed this diving apparatus while he was in Venice. It was made for surprise attacks against boats from underwater.”

“Are you expecting us to run into trouble with the papal navy?”

“To be safe, I will give you everything.”

Marlowe turned around to take in all the possibilities open to him. So many weapons, so many ideas whispering to him like iron muses of epic poetry.

“So, can we help each other?” Roberto asked, offering the English poet his hand.

Marlowe had no doubt he would regret passing up this opportunity. “To Rome,” he vowed, accepting it.

The old man smiled.
“Va bene.”
He then led Marlowe downstairs for some coffee, which the poet was overjoyed to learn Roberto actually had plenty of.

As he promised, it was not poisoned.

 

Chapter XXIX

The Fog

It was springtime in London; or at least it was supposed to be. The cunning wind persisted through the New Year and eventually transitioned into April rain. By the time the storms were spent, a thick fog fell like a curtain over the sodden, plague-strewn city just before the first of May. With London obscured behind this veil, the bard worked at his desk on Silver Street with only the gossip of a chatty conspiracy of ravens for inspiration.

The Rauen himselfe is hoarse,

That croakes the fatall entrance of Duncan

Vnder my Battlements. Come you Spirits,

That tend on mortall thoughts, vnsex me here,

And fill me from the Crowne to the Toe, top-full

Of direst Crueltie: make thick my blood,

Stop vp th 'accesse, and passage to Remorse,

That no compunctious visitings of Nature

Shake my fell purpose, nor keepe peace between

Th' effect, and hit. Come to my Womans Brests,

And take my Milke for Gall, you murth'ring Ministers,

Where-euer, in your sightlesse substances,

You wait on Natures Mischiefe. Come thick Night,

And pall thee in the dunnest smoake of Hell,

That my keene Knife see not the Wound it makes,

Nor Heauen peepe through the Blanket of the darke,

To cry, hold, hold.

Shakespeare's words were no more a compliment to London's raven population than to its weather. The rancorous birds outside his windows had become a nuisance ever since the fog descended. Although he was alarmed by their cries at first, the bard stopped trying to make sense of their strange behavior once he realized that they, like he, had nothing to observe but endless gray. Perhaps they had found an adversary, or maybe the blinded birds were just communicating through the mist. In either case, the playwright could think of no better crutch to fall upon than apathy. As long as Bacon's ravens kept his enemies at bay—

There was a pounding on his door. “Will!” a voice cried out.

It was Guy Fawkes.

Shakespeare turned his head, stunned that the conspirator had somehow found a way to his apartment. The bard glanced once more to the droning ravens, and then back to his door with alerted eyes. As the pounding continued, he then looked to his sword.

“SHAKESPEARE!”

“Just a moment!” The playwright hid his few belongings and opened the door for the hatted, bearded man waiting for him on the other side.

“Will!”

“Guido,” the playwright nodded.

Fawkes put a gloved hand on Shakespeare's shoulder. “Brother. May I come in?”

Before the bard could ask him not to, the conspirator had already rushed inside. “Please be my guest, my friend.”

“Bless you, brother!” Fawkes's eyes raced across the room like a cornered animal.

“Is everything all right, Guido?” Shakespeare asked as he closed the door. “You look—”

“Will, we need to get out of here!” Fawkes interrupted.

“What! Why?”

“We have to go to Westminster. It's urgent! I tried to reach you yesterday, but…” The conspirator instinctively pulled his hat over some of the scratches on his face. “The birds are a menace in this part of town!”

Shakespeare's eyes shifted to the clouded windows. “Yes, they tend to be.”

The conspirator nodded nervously. “Very much so. Now, come! Fly with me!”

“Guido!” the playwright pleaded, catching the conspirator by the arm. “What is this about? You're acting mad.”

“You know we can't talk about this here!”

“Of course we can.”

“Will! I—” Several footsteps from the floor above them silenced Fawkes. The conspirator looked back to Shakespeare and grabbed his hand. “Come. We're leaving!”

“Guido, I don't have my sword!”

“You'll be safe with me.” Fawkes pulled the playwright through the door.

“Would you at least tell me what this is about!” the bard protested as he yanked his hand back.

The conspirator stared deeply into Shakespeare's eyes. “I'm only sharing this much with you because I know you can be trusted. My brother, we have been betrayed!”

The bard's heart stopped. “By whom?”

Guy Fawkes's nostrils flared. “By the witches!”