The Marlowe Conspiracy (30 page)

Outside, lest he appear suspicious to the guards, Kit fought the urge to scan the corridor for the Queen. Audrey held the pillow out in front of her and puffed it to make sure the guards would see. She paced off down the corridor with Kit at her side. For fear of meeting Elizabeth, they walked in the opposite direction from the stairs.

As Kit strode along, he felt a strange queasiness in his stomach. Compulsively, he touched the full pouch swinging from his hip to assure himself he didn't leave the pages of
‘Hero and Leander’
behind. He reached up to check his beard was stuck on properly. He halted. His eyes widened and he rubbed his chin: it was bare.

“My beard!” he gasped.

Audrey looked over her shoulder and drew close to him.

“I'll make sure the Queen doesn't find it,” she said. “You can't go back for it. You simply can’t.”

A commotion sounded at the other end of the corridor. They turned their heads. In a fearful rage, Elizabeth whisked around the corner and barreled straight for her bedchamber. Audrey pointed the way to Kit and gave him some quick directions on how to return to the banquet hall.

“Farewell,” she whispered to him. She started back towards the royal bedchamber.

“Farewell,” he replied.

He turned away down the corridor. Without looking back, she hurried along and met up with the handmaid's chasing after Elizabeth.

SCENE TWELVE

Palace Corridors.

K
it made no pretensions of calm as he wound his way through the maze of corridors: he wanted out. After passing through a dim gallery of paintings and sculptures, he veered outside, cut through an archway and a colonnade, and took a quicker route back to the banquet hall. Once he had reached the hall, he dipped inside to collect Will, reemerged into the corridor, and headed for the kitchens. Minutes later, they both nipped outside to the rear grounds of the palace.

Now that the banquet had come to a premature end, servants and cooks gathered outside around the outhouses to gossip. No one relished the thought of tackling the dirty dishes, goblets, and trays waiting for them inside. Through rings of smoke and swigs of ale, the serving men relayed the unusual events of the banquet to anyone who would listen.

On the edge of one group, Frizer loitered and tried unsuccessfully to engage people in conversation. Slightly bored, he stared off into the gardens, then panned his gaze around the outhouses. His eyes stopped at the kitchens and watched two figures exit the palace. One figure stood taller than the other. The smallest wore a beard and Frizer didn't recognize him, but the other figure was beardless and seemed familiar. He squinted closer. It was definitely Marlowe.

Frizer's face lit up. Without a moment to waste, he jogged off into the palace and ran in the direction of the banquet hall.

Inside the hall, the nobles had regained their staunch composure and most had begun to leave. Although some still remained at the table, sipping at the ends of wine or pecking at meat from bones, most lords and ladies now filtered out of the room. The effects of the truth potion had relinquished and left them all with tired faces, sore stomachs, and bruised ribs.

At one side, Thomas stood talking to a small group of noblemen. During the feast, he had laughed as hard as anyone, but unlike other people the potion had left him with a feeling of release. Frustrations had momentarily ebbed away. The muscles along his back were loose from fear. His heart and lungs felt pleasantly unrestricted by jealously. He cracked his knuckles and nodded his head gently while listening to an old bearded man espouse theories about what had occurred that night. Many people claimed to have forgotten everything said at the table. Thomas agreed, but didn't really believe them.

Frizer jumped into the room and approached him. Thomas took leave of the old man and strolled a few paces away so that no one in the group could listen.

Frizer leant close and whispered his news. Thomas waited a few seconds, struggling to understand him. He arched his eyebrows.

“Are you sure?” he said, unable to contain his surprise.

“Indeed I am, sir,” Frizer replied, clearly pleased with himself. “Marlowe left with another man just this minute. It was probably Shakespeare.”

Thomas gave him a doubtful look. Frizer blushed, adding to the redness of his cheeks.

“Let your lady's absence vouch for it, sir.”

Thomas balked at the idea.

“You mean... he... and she...” He couldn't finish the sentence. Thoughts and images of the coupling suddenly tortured his mind. His body tightened and his face grew stern. He pressed his lips together severely.

At that moment, Audrey appeared at the hall's entrance. Her svelte, angular figure filled half the door frame. She quickly sighted Thomas and Frizer and padded over to them. She held her hands at her waist, kept her head low, and avoided looking Thomas in the eye.

“Her majesty wishes me to stay late again,” she said uneasily.

Thomas narrowed his eyes.

“Is that so?”

“The palace will have a carriage take me home later.”

He peered down and noticed her bodice was tied wrongly. Some of the strings missed their holes or lay tangled upon the others. He gave a bitter smile and stroked his nails along his forelock.

“As you will,” he replied, sounding each syllable precisely.

For a moment, she studied him carefully, even suspiciously, then circled on her heel and swiftly left the room.

Once she had gone, Thomas beckoned Frizer close.

“I'll wait no longer,” said Thomas in a low voice. “It's time our favorite playwright made an exit.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And I know exactly where it can be done...”

ACT IV

SCENE ONE

Norton Folgate. Kit’s Lodgings.

K
it woke from a deep, dreamless sleep and rolled over in bed.

Outside, the morning sun lifted over great meadows and crooked lanes. The half-light of dawn steeped everything in a softly vibrating radiance as if all colors, shapes, and textures were newly revealed after the moon had masked the world in darkness. Trees bared their branches. Pebbles exposed their base yellows and grays. Fields unfurled into vast tracts of land spiked with slender blades of grass. The once draughtless air now stirred with tails of wind, the shadows of fleeting starlings, the soft-murmuring of insects.

After Kit had dressed, he left his room and stepped out onto the road. Norton Folgate was a sparsely populated liberty less than a mile from London. Essentially, it was a road leading from the ward of Bishopsgate in London, to the high street of Shoreditch located a short distance to the north. Homes and shops had clustered around the road, but they were so few in number that the settlement felt as free and open as a country hamlet.

His head clouded by worries, Kit strolled up the road toward Shoreditch. He had no idea how to convince Baines against making incriminating charges. It seemed hopeless. Even so, he had to try something – there was nothing else to do. Hogg lane lurked a short distance ahead but he avoided it for now and continued onwards to meet Will at his room in Shoreditch.

Will lodged at a widow's cottage just off the high street. Kit padded inside the cottage, tramped across the hall, found Will's door and knocked. He waited for over half a minute before it finally opened.

Will shuffled to the doorframe, looking utterly disheveled. He still wore the serving man's livery from last night. He squinted up at Kit.

“Pray tell me it’s not that hour already?”

“Afraid so,” Kit replied half-frowning, half-smiling. “I think you look how I feel this morning, Will.”

“Then you must feel like a cowpat – because that’s probably what I look like.”

“Didn’t you sleep?”

“I can sleep later. I had more important issues to contend with.”

“Like what?”

“I needed time to write. The last few days exhausted me more than I thought possible... I hoped seeing the palace and the Queen might give me some level of inspiration.”

“And did it?”

Will blinked dismally. He didn’t answer. While rubbing the tiredness from his eyes, he beckoned Kit into his room.

From their recent travels, Kit had often seen Will in the morning, but he had never appeared as sallow or sickly as he did now. The last few days had aged him dramatically. His limbs seemed thinner. Bags hung under his eyes. A certain vigor had waned from his movements. In comparison, Kit bristled with energy as he strode into Will's room.

Weary and half asleep, Will changed into a fresh shirt and breeches while Kit spoke about how they would confront Baines today. They shared halves of a biscuit – the only food Will had to offer – and finally set out to find Baines.

They both knew Hogg Lane. It bisected the main thoroughfare between Norton Folgate and Shoreditch and led out to Butcher's Close, a large piggery just beyond the houses. Due to the piggery, the area reeked with warm, lagging fumes of manure piles; and smooth, pink-backed pigs frequently clogged the entire street as farmers moved the grunting herds. The lane consisted of a dirt road squeezed between a solid line of beam and plaster buildings, each packed unnecessarily close together, as if crouching in the other's shadow.

Morning sun lifted higher in the sky and rapidly heated the earth. With careful steps, Kit and Will chanced their way down the muddy lane. They sidestepped litter and skirted ditches with floating debris and apple cores. Dust and noise thickened the air as the street slowly gained activity.

Further down the lane, travelers stopped in coaches to browse the shops. The outside world had grown so brilliant with sun that the light began to invade the dim interiors of the shops. Strange outlines of objects sat on the shelves through the gloom and merchants stood in doorways leaning against the doorframe. Also along the lane, peddlers with shiny satchels touted fake holy relics plundered from Jerusalem. Sun reddened the faces of vagabonds dozing on the ground next to pots of change and some were honest enough to state they wanted cash to buy ale or the company of a loose woman. Indeed, such women were close at hand, for the painted faces of young girls waited in the shade of many open doorways.