The Marlowe Conspiracy (22 page)

In Kit's room at the boarding house, a gentle light sifted through his shut curtains. His lower lip protruded as he slept and the bump on his forehead had shrunk a little, though it had now turned a shade of deep blue and purple. The parchment from the night before still lay upon his lap, with sheet placed across sheet and his loose-fingered hand relaxed upon them all. Noise from the road seemed to dwindle at his bedside, and the dead air hardly stirred with his peaceful snores...

At first, he didn't wake at the thudding in the hall of the boarding house. Nor did his eyelids flutter at the rush of feet trammeling upstairs. As the noise continued and heels thundered down the corridor, approaching his room, he was just beginning to flicker his eyelids.

Suddenly, his door flung open.

Slammed back on its hinges.

A squad of city guards crashed into his room.

He barely had time to raise his head, force his eyes open, or defend himself, before the guards ripped him out of bed.

SCENE FOURTEEN

Boarding House. Kit’s Room.

I
n total, seven city guards filled the room, their limbs gleaming with armor. Snug helmets exposed their faces. Cuirasses plated their chests and back – some with large dents and battered edges. The fingers of the steel gloves creaked and squealed as they clasped their hands around a pike: a long wooden shaft tipped with steel, reminiscent of a tribal spear. At the center of all the guards stood the captain. A stocky man, he stood shorter than the rest – all head and square shoulders. He grasped a document in his hands, smartly unrolled it, and wetted his lips.

“Christopher Marlowe,” said the captain in a curt manner, “I hereby place you under arrest on charge of counterfeiting.”

Two guards stepped forward and pinched Kit's arms with their gauntlets. Kit threw his head back.

“What?” he replied, struggling to understand. “Who made such a charge?”

The captain's eyes dropped back to the document and he read aloud.

“Richard Baines lodged the charges. You're to be escorted to see Lord Burghley at Westminster.”

The guards yanked him across the room to the door. Everything was going too quickly: the last thing he wanted was to be delivered up to Burghley. Although he was still in his clothes from the night before, he had removed his shoes and his belt for comfort and laid them on the back of the chair. He stuck his heels into the floorboards and twisted toward the captain.

“At least let me garb myself properly.”

The captain tipped his head at the request and the guards released Kit so he could dress.

Kit’s request had saved only a few seconds in order to think. He padded over to his chair, slowly lifted his belt, wrapped it around his waist and closed the buckle. He slid his feet inside his shoes. The parchment he had written on was now scattered all over on the floor and the guards trampled it under their boots as they moved about. He scanned the room for some way of escape. The guards had stationed themselves to cover both the window and the door. One of them held his dagger. Another guard rummaged through his bag of belongings. Before long, the captain gestured to the guards and they grabbed him again and thrust him toward the door.

In the corridor, the door of the room opposite opened wide and Will leant out anxiously. Next to the impenetrable armor filling the corridor, Will's skinny arms and frail neck seemed laughable.

“In faith!” Will gasped. “What's this!”

A guard immediately rounded on him and cross-checked him with a pike.

“Go to, sir!” the guard grunted.

Color rushed into Will's cheeks and he pushed back, ready to fight. Kit looked him in the eye and shook his head. Will understood and backed down.

As the guards dragged him through the doorframe, Kit prepared himself to act. His mouth turned dry. His tongue withered at the root. His ears became sensitive to every grating movement of armor, every footfall.

He broke their hold. Thrashed left and right, banging his captors into the wall. The guards behind reacted, tried to catch him in their arms, but he dived through them and dashed back into the empty room.

His feet pattered lightly over the floor. He rushed straight for the window and threw it open.

The casements swung back and hit the outside of the house. He glanced down below: more shiny helmets and cuirasses and pikes waited on the road.

Thooomph!

He wheeled around back into the room and saw a pike-tip stabbed into the wall next to him. Guards flooded into the room again. One guard raised his arm to the throw another pike.

Kit panicked. Grabbed onto the windowsill, raised his knee, jumped up and clambered out the window onto the ledge outside. The drop to the street seemed to increase sharply. The pointed pikes below glinted up at him.

Fingers pressed white onto any handhold he could find, he shuffled his feet along the narrow ledge. Cool morning air tickled around his knees. He balanced as best he could and looked back toward the window.

Two of the bravest guards followed him out onto the ledge.

Kit inched toward a beam supporting the roof. From pressing so close to the side of the house, white plaster smeared across the front of his doublet and breeches. He extended an arm and struggled to touch the beam overhead. The guards were nearly on him now. He had no choice.

He jumped. Caught both hands around the beam and dug his nails into the wood. His feet swung helpless beneath him. The beam pricked his hands with splinters as he scrabbled up, hand over hand, till he gripped onto the edge of the roof and heaved himself up carefully onto the rooftop.

Now two stories high, with a sweeping view of the city, he crouched low, checking he could balance on the tiles. Fortunately, the rooftop slanted gently, making it easy to run across. From the street below, voices yelled and cajoled, urging the guards on the ledge to hurry.

To Kit's surprise, a hand suddenly appeared on the rooftop. Then another. Within moments, both the guards chasing him had hoisted themselves successfully onto the roof.

He streaked over the rooftop. The guards followed soon after.

A peak rose before him. He sprang forward, vaulted it, slid down the other side. He thundered along so hard his feet dislodged tiles – they slid out in all directions, slicing left, right, and off the roof, smashing to bits on the cobblestones below.

The roof of the boardinghouse ended rapidly. A small gap spanned the distance between the next rooftop.

He rushed onwards, gaining in speed. His lungs burnt with air. His hands dampened with sweat. The gap in the rooftops moved closer and closer, yet with every stride it broadened, exposing a great wide breach between the buildings. At the last moment, he slid to a halt. It was far too big to jump.

His eyes scouted around for another way down. No other rooftops stood nearby. No beams to climb down. Nothing lay below to break his fall.

The guards in the street caught up, their pikes bobbing up and down as they ran to stand beneath the gap. He pivoted. On the rooftop, the guards chasing behind him slowed their pace gingerly as they came nearer. Long-bladed daggers stuck out from their hands. Kit had nothing: no armor or weapons to fight with.

He glanced at the belt around his waist. Long, and made of thick leather, the belt was well-cut with clean edges that had yet to crack or split. Instantly, he whipped it undone from his hips and locked it into a large loop.

The guards stepped even closer and prepared to fight. A tile cracked. They crouched, ready for anything.

Kit didn't waste another second. Both guards watched in surprise as he turned sharply, sprinted over the tiles, and hurtled toward the edge. It seemed suicidal! Legs pumping, arms swinging, Kit accelerated his pace, faster and faster. At the very last point, he did the unthinkable – hurled himself into the air as high as he could.

For a moment, there was complete silence. On the ground below no one moved. On the rooftop behind, the guards stood awestruck and watched Kit in the air.

The far roof sped toward Kit in the space of a long, majestic second. He felt he would make it, but his stomach turned and he knew he would fall short.

He flung his arms out desperately.

Whirled the belt through the air.

A fraction before the rest of his body, his chest slammed into the wall of the building. His knees, hands, feet smashed into the bricks. Yet he didn't fall. Somehow he'd snagged the belt onto the building's cornice above.

He dangled there by one hand, his feet free and kicking beneath him. The belt strained to hold him. Little by little it slipped and worked itself off the cornice.

The rooftop guards chuckled to themselves.

“Nice one, mate!” one of them yelled across the gap.

Kit didn't hear. Blood rushed to his head and air sat in his lungs and his ears felt muffled. His arm twisted, ready to tear from its socket. The belt slipped to the very lip of the cornice. He pawed at the wall for something, anything, to grip on to but his nails scratched away uselessly.

He refused to give up and grabbed onto the belt with his other hand. Stomach muscles tensed, he pulled hard on the leather and raised himself up an inch, then a little more, two inches, even more – it was enough to reach out quick and grab hold of the cornice. Gradually, his arms heaved his body level with the roof and he climbed up fully to the top.

Exhausted, he managed to stand only by planting his feet wide apart. To his dismay this rooftop pitched steeper than the others. The tiles beneath him shuddered with his weight. Before he started off, he peered over to the guards on the far rooftop and gave a cheeky wave.

“Tell you what, gentlemen – if you jump it I’ll try and catch you. How about that?”

They scowled back at him. Kit laughed and started away.

“You’ll have to go to Westminster without me, I’m afraid.”

He shimmied along the tall peak of the roof. Yet no sooner had he moved his foot, than the tiles pulled loose and completely slipped out underneath.

In one tiny avalanche, tile after tile gushed out of place. Kit tried to scrabble out of it. He fell onto his back. With a long yell, he slid down the roof feet-first and skidded over the edge...

Scaffolding on the other side of the building caught him in mid-fall. His back pounded into planks supported by a frame of oak poles. On impact, the entire scaffolding swayed and groaned at the joints. Before he could recover, it broke apart and clattered with him to the ground.

Half-covered by poles and planks, Kit lay prostrate amid the debris and waited for the dust to clear. It drifted away and revealed a set of street guards surrounding him. They pointed their pikes down in a ring around his head.

ACT III

SCENE ONE