The Dead Hamlets: Book Two of the Book of Cross (14 page)

“You should throw those damned artefacts into the flames as well,” I told him. “They are as dangerous as the book.”

“I have need of them yet,” he said. “And I have found a safe place to keep them when I am gone.”

I knew it would not be so easy, because it is never so easy with things such as that. But I also knew there was nothing I could say to change Will’s mind. We fell into silence and watched Marlowe’s theatre burn to the ground.

“Oh, Mephistopheles,” Marlowe sighed at one point.

And when the flames died away, so did Marlowe.

I helped bury him on a rainy day in a graveyard I won’t name now because it doesn’t matter anymore. The funeral party was only five other men and me. They were all important types in their day, but they’ve been lost to history too. It happens to everyone. Maybe it will even happen to me one day. There’s always hope.

We lowered the coffin into the grave with ropes that burned our hands. We didn’t refrain from cursing the pain or the day, because after all it was Marlowe we were laying to rest. There was no one else watching us, unless you counted the stone skulls adorning the gates to the graveyard. Who knows—the times being what they were, maybe the skulls were watching.

When we’d put the coffin in its resting place, we took turns filling in the grave with shovelfuls of wet earth. This was back before the days of bulldozers and such. We’ve come a long way when it comes to burying the dead. And making the dead. When we buried someone back then, we did it the old-fashioned way, with blood, sweat and tears.

When we were done, there was nothing to mark the grave but the freshly turned dirt. There was no gravestone, no marker to designate the final resting place of Christopher Marlowe, one of the finest playwrights and bravest demon hunters to have walked the earth.

We left the grave unmarked because we wanted to maintain the guise of secrecy, like we were trying to hide Marlowe’s final resting place from his countless enemies. But we all knew they’d find him eventually. Those were just the kind of enemies he made. That’s why the thing we put in the coffin wasn’t Marlowe. In fact, it bore no more resemblance to him than the story about his death in that tavern brawl.

We all stood around the grave and observed a moment of silence. None of us prayed, because we were beyond that now. Then the bell in the church tower began to chime, telling us it was time we were on our way.

When I looked up, I saw Will standing at the edge of the graveyard, dressed in mourning clothes. I didn’t know where he had come from. There was no horse or carriage. We looked at each other but said nothing.

I turned to the man beside me and offered him my hand. “Keep him safe and secret,” I said, and he said the same to me. I went around the circle, repeating the same thing with every one of them. One for each of Marlowe’s body parts. His arms, his legs, his torso. And me with his head. I don’t know why, but I’m always the one who gets the head for safekeeping.

“Keep him safe and secret.”

I made my way out of the graveyard to Will. He looked at the bag in my hand, then back at me.

“Wherever your travels take you next, may it be far away from England,” he said. “The Royals have not taken kindly to what you did to one of their own.”

“You mean throwing that body into the book?” I said. “I don’t see as I had any choice.”

“You had no more choice than any other man,” Will said. “But the Royals have never been one to forgive or forget. Flee while you are still able.”

I knew his words were honest, and I nodded my thanks. “Until next time then,” I said.

“There will be no next time,” he said. He looked at the bag again. “Keep him safe and secret,” he said.

Those of us who buried Marlowe rode out of the graveyard and away from there in separate directions, each of us knowing only where we were taking our own burden for hiding. It would be a devilish enemy indeed that would be able to find all the parts of Marlowe and unite them to claim his soul. Which meant that there was a fair chance it would happen anyway. But we did what we could to protect him, for we were his friends of a sort. As much as any of us could lay claim to friendships, anyway.

And now everyone was dead but me. I planned to change that, though. Soon everyone would be dead but me—and Marlowe.

I parked in the lot of a place called The Garrick Inn, which some call the oldest building in Stratford-Upon-Avon because it dates back to the 1400s. I guess that claim is true enough if you’re only counting the places that mortals like to frequent.

I walked down the street to the Royal Shakespeare Company theatre. I made a brief stop at a store to buy a bottle of wine I tucked under my coat. I was lucky enough to arrive at the theatre at the same time a busload of Americans were lining up for a tour. I slipped into the back of the pack, paid my admission and went inside with them. This was one of those times I definitely didn’t want to stand out from the crowd.

I didn’t know where all the different pieces of Marlowe were hidden these days. They’d probably been moved around numerous times since they’d been spirited away from that cemetery all those centuries ago. I’d certainly moved Marlowe’s head enough times over the years, although it was just a skull now. The last place I’d left it had been here, in the theatre. Marlowe loved the stage too much to be able to quit it, even in death, so I’d done what I could to oblige him.

A tour guide led our group into the theatre and started to go into the history of the place. The people around me ignored her as they took photos of the refurbished seats and empty stage. The theatre reminded me of Morgana, which reminded me of how much I missed her, which made me want to burn the building down. Which wouldn’t have been the first time someone had torched this place. Look up the official history if you’re curious, but I swear innocence on all charges.

Eventually the guide got tired of telling us about all the famous actors who had once graced the theatre with their presence—it’s a long list, after all. She took us backstage, to show us how the magic was made. That was when I left the group. She led them down one hall to show them the wardrobe room, and I went down another hall, to the props room.

The door was locked, but I think I’ve made it clear by now that’s not a problem for me. I slipped inside and closed the door behind me. It was a small room, barely the size of a London apartment. It wasn’t meant to store all the props for the theatre—there was a larger warehouse space a short drive away for that. This room was just for props that were being used in current productions. And a few items that never left the theatre. Like the only prop really necessary for
Hamlet
: Yorick’s skull.

I searched the room until I found the skull on a shelf at the back, under a pile of moth-eaten cloaks that looked as if they dated back to some 1960s production. The skull was yellowed and cracked in several places. No doubt from being dropped in performances or after-show parties. If people only knew who they were really holding. But if they did, someone would have stolen it by now, and then where would I be?

I brought the skull to my lips and breathed some grace into it, and called Marlowe back. Then I sat down on a fake wooden throne in a corner and waited for him to arrive.

It didn’t take long. There was nothing that outwardly changed about the skull, but I had a distinct feeling it was gazing at me now with those empty sockets. I’ve developed a sense for this sort of thing.

“Welcome back, my friend,” I said.

He chuckled. The sound of a skull chuckling isn’t something I can really describe, so I’ll have to leave it to your imagination.

“Cross,” he greeted me in that voice that only skulls can make. See above. “I don’t know what surprises me more: that I live again or that you still walk the earth.”

“There have been times when we’ve shared the grave,” I said. “I’m just a little more resilient than you.”

“Well now,” he said. “That remains to be seen, does it not?”

“You may have a point there,” I said.

“At any rate,” he said. “It is good to see you again. Have you come to raise me?” He bumped around a bit on the shelf, as if looking for the rest of his body.

“I’m afraid not,” I said. “I’ve no idea where the other parts of you are.” In fact, I had no idea if the other parts of him still even existed. The world was a hard place sometimes, especially to the dead.

Marlowe sighed. It was a sound that . . . well, you’d have to be there to understand.

“You know I’d raise you if I could,” I said. “I figure I probably owe you that much for killing you in the first place.”

“Tis nothing I wouldn’t have done to myself given more time,” Marlowe said. “Besides, I know it wasn’t you. It was that damnable Will.”

“True enough,” I said, happy to shift the blame. “I’ve long harboured the suspicion he was just trying to eliminate a competitor. You were always my favourite playwright.”

“Don’t lie to the dead,” Marlowe said. “It’s a terrible sin.”

“All right,” I said and laughed. “You were my favourite next to Webster.”

“Worthy enough company, I suppose,” Marlowe said. “At least you didn’t say Beckett.”

“What the hell do you know about Beckett?” I asked. Marlowe had been dead for hundreds of years before Samuel Beckett even thought about writing
Waiting for Godot
and his other plays.

“Enough to know he relied too much on things not said and not enough on saying things properly,” he said. “Hardly the stuff of poetry.”

“I don’t know how to break this to you,” I said, “but the 20th century killed poetry.”

“Why, this is hell then,” Marlowe said.

I pulled the wine out from under my jacket and opened it.

“Think’st thou that I, who saw the face of God, and tasted the eternal joys of Heaven, am not tormented with ten thousand hells?” I said.

Marlowe was silent for a moment, then chuckled again. “All right,” he said. “Let’s have some of that.”

I poured a bit of the bottle over the skull, and the wine seeped into all the cracks. None of it made it to the shelf.

“Oh, that is fine,” Marlowe said, which reminded me of how bad the wine had been back in the day. I took a swig from the bottle myself. Well, I’d definitely had worse.

“If you are not here on my behalf, then I take it you are here on yours,” Marlowe said.

“Close enough,” I said.

“It must be a strange artefact of knowledge you seek then,” he said, “to risk raising me from my slumber.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by “risk” but I decided not to question him on it. The dead had their own way of seeing the world. And talking about it.

“I need to learn more about whatever it is that’s haunting
Hamlet
,” I said.

“If I recall correctly, it’s the ghost of his father,” Marlowe said. “Hardly an original idea.”

“I mean what’s haunting the play, not the man,” I said. And I told him everything I knew, leaving out the parts about Amelia. Sometimes, when talking to the dead, it’s best to keep some secrets. But I did bring out the book, because I still needed someone to explain it to me.

“What is that?” Marlowe asked. So it appeared I would have to keep looking.

“I was hoping you’d know,” I said. “Polonius gave it to me. When I was dead. And he was dead. In the Forgotten Library.”

“The Forgotten Library!” Marlowe exclaimed. “How did you manage to travel there?”

“First I had to get killed,” I said. “And the rest is a bit of a mystery to me. You know of the place?”

“Will told me of it in one of our rare moments of rapport,” Marlowe said. “It sounded both wondrous and terrifying.”

I nodded. “That sounds about right,” I said.

“I pressed him to take me there, or at least grant me the secret of how to find it,” Marlowe went on. “But he said it was a place best left unvisited by those who valued their soul.”

“For once I’m inclined to agree with him,” I said, thinking about my encounter with Polonius there.

“What wonders does the book contain then?” Marlowe asked. “It must be grand indeed for the dead man to force it upon you.”

I opened the book and showed him the blank pages.

“Well, the dead can be mad sometimes,” Marlowe said.

“Believe me, I know,” I said. I put the book back in my pocket. “Whatever it is, though, I suspect it’s somehow connected to the haunting.”

Marlowe didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he said, “More wine, if you please.”

So I poured half the bottle over him. I wasn’t sure if you could get a skull drunk or not, but I figured I didn’t have anything to lose by trying.

“What’s in this for me?” he asked after he’d soaked for a suitable time.

I settled back in the throne and now it was my turn to savour the drink.

“What would you have?” I asked.

“Life and limb,” he said.

“I just told you I have no idea where your limbs are,” I reminded him.

“Life then,” he said. “Let it not be said I make unrealistic demands.”

“You have life,” I pointed out.

“I have life on your terms,” he countered. “By your grace. And if anyone knows how quickly grace granted can be lost, it is I.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “Name your terms then.”

“A simple favour,” he said.

“I’ve learned there is no such thing when the dead are involved,” I said.

“An errand, really,” he said.

“Even worse,” I sighed.

“I’d like you to travel to London and visit the abbey,” he said.

“Which abbey?” I asked.

“Westminster, of course,” he said. “What other abbey would there be worth visiting?”

I sighed again, because it was the sort of situation that called for more than one sigh.

“Go on,” I said, so he did.

“Find Spenser’s tomb,” he said, “and open it.”

“Edmund Spenser?” I asked. “Author of
The Faerie Queene
?”

“Indeed,” Marlowe said. “I’m glad some semblance of literacy remains with you.”

“You know what I miss?” I said. “The good old days when quests involved simple things like slaying dragons.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” Marlowe said. “Bring me what you find in the tomb, and I will give you the answers you seek.”

“Why do I suspect your answers will bring more riddles?” I asked him.

“Oh, I have no doubt of that,” Marlowe said. “But that is your concern, not mine.”

I nodded and pushed myself up out of the fake throne. “Don’t go anywhere,” I said. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Sooner, later, I’ll be here,” Marlowe said. It would have been a good moment for him to chuckle again, but he didn’t.

I poured the rest of the wine over his skull then exited the scene.