The Marlowe Conspiracy (32 page)

For the first time, the assassin staggered backwards, weakened, frantically brushing the red hot ash and cinders singeing his eyes and cheeks.

“I imagine that’s quite painful,” Kit said dryly. “Let’s call it a day, shall we?”

While the assassin recovered, Kit retrieved his dagger from the ground and tried to escape. His side throbbed and slowed his movements and the crowd didn't part quick enough to let him out.

“Go to!” he bellowed at them. “Move, damn you! Move!”

Just in time, he turned his head: the assassin pounced toward him again. By now, the man was tired and his aim was ragged. He lashed at Kit with all his strength, unconcerned with overreaching or exposing himself. The crowd heckled louder, sensing the end was near for one of the men. Kit parried the thrusts, but side-stepped and his foot gave way on the muddy edge of a ditch. He slipped and splashed into the stinking water. The assassin loomed overhead and struck downwards. Kit rolled out of the thrust. The sword sliced by his shoulder and sunk heavily into the mud beneath the water.

While the assassin was stuck helpless, Kit acted fast.

Jumped to his feet.

Thrashed his dagger deep into the assassin's heart.

The wound was instantly crushing. The assassin's face twisted in agony and strength flooded away from him. He dropped dead into the ditch.

Kit gaped at the dead body floating face-down in the water. Two men rushed over to the ditch and checked the assassin for signs of life. Kit turned away as the crowd screamed and shouted and tried to grab him and hinder his escape. He elbowed them aside, winced, and touched his wound. Blood coated his hand and dripped from his fingertips. Sickened and dizzy from shock, he lurched onwards a few more paces. His eyelids twitched. The world swam in laps around his head, the earth becoming the sky and the dirt and the clouds. The ground rushed up viciously to meet his head. He blacked out and collapsed...

SCENE THREE

Canterbury Cathedral.

I
n the nave, sublime choral music scaled the height of the rafters. Choir boys stood in the choir stalls and each held a small hymnbook in his hands. Though the choir remained perfectly still, their mouths spouted Latin syllables and their eyes roved, sometimes watching the arms of the earnest choir master waving at their side.

Back from the stalls, along the central aisle, Whitgift observed the choir from a distance. Candlelight threw a glassy sheen over his hair. A melancholy expression resided between the strong lines on his face. He held his powerful hands together, drawn in to his chest, his rings just touching his beard. The music soothed his ears and he stood and listened for some time.

Suddenly, the tiny slip-slap of shoe soles flopped up behind him. He turned to find a fat-cheeked choir boy rushing by, late for choral practice. As he passed, the boy’s hymnbook slipped from his fingers and splashed to the floor. Mortified, the boy skidded to a halt. His lower lip quivered.

Amused at the boy's reaction, Whitgift bent down, picked the book up, and handed it back. The boy looked up at him with awe.

“Pray pardon,” the boy squeaked. “I didn’t mean to, your worship. Honest.”

Whitgift nodded warmly.

“Be more careful in the future.”

“Yes, Archbishop.”

“You’re forgiven, my son. Go and join the others.”

The boy smiled, clutched the book tighter, and scampered off to join the choir.

Meanwhile, at the cathedral entrance, Thomas stepped inside and straightened his back. He had spent a long, anxious hour traveling by coach from Chislehurst. He ignored the choir music and paced down the aisle. When he reached Whitgift, he gave a small cough to announce his presence.

Whitgift didn't turn to greet him – just kept his eyes on the choir in the distance. He sighed wearily.

“I’d like to know something...”

“Yes,” Thomas replied.

“Why is it God would give a man the urge for fatherhood, yet allot him a position in life that bars such fulfillment?”

Thomas gave an awkward smile, unsure how he should respond.

“I don’t know, your worship.”

“No, I don’t expect you do. Very few people in this life truly understand what it is to doubt… how dangerous it can be…”

For a minute they stood motionless in the aisle. Strains of music echoed between them. Whitgift's face turned grave and his shoulders flexed under the folds of his cassock. Thomas pressed his lips together flat. Finally, Whitgift pushed a hand through the air toward him.

“You’re a very lucky man, I believe,” Whitgift stated flatly.

“Why so?”

“You’re lucky that Marlowe isn't dead.”

Thomas drew a short breath. He averted his eyes.

“They're holding him for manslaughter in Marshalsea,” he replied.

“And how badly was he wounded by your idiot assassin?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Then you must find out.”

“Yes.” Thomas swallowed awkwardly. “I do know that a doctor saw to him.”

Whitgift turned and gave him a sharp, cutting glance.

“Disobey me again and I'll grind you under my heel like a grape.” He started off towards the side of the cathedral, taking long strides.

Thomas hurried to keep up with him.

“I’m deeply sorry, your worship.”

“Your apologies are the last thing I want to hear. We've come too far for half-measures.”

“Yes.”

“The posters have helped incite the very riots and heresy I need to stop. Marlowe's death will atone for all that, but it must be public – not a cheap back-alley stabbing. Do you understand me?”

“I understand.”

“Glad to hear it. I hope for your sake that you won’t disappoint me again.”

Thomas bowed his head submissively.

“I have Baines,” he muttered.

“And where is this elusive man?”

“The sacristy.”

Whitgift studied him a moment, then nodded and they strode under pillars towards a side door.

In the sacristy, white tiles made diamonds over the floor. Sacred vessels glistened inside glass cabinets. Hung from pegs in one corner, a range of holy gowns brushed their silk and velvet hems against the floor. In the middle of the room, by a large cross upon the wall, Baines sat on a chair leaning his elbows miserably on the top of a short table. He stared ahead blankly as Whitgift and Thomas hovered around him. So far, he had been less than cooperative.

“...don't be absurd,” Thomas said precisely. “Why would you protect him?”

“I’m not,” Baines grunted.

“He lost you your job, didn’t he? That wasn’t my fault. It was Burghley’s decision.”

Baines didn't answer. Thomas changed his tone and bent his head closer in a friendly manner.

“When Whitgift and I rise to expand our spy network, you won't be forgotten. Have faith in that.”

Baines twisted in his chair and leered.

“Faith?”

Thomas stood up correctly.

“That's your department, I believe,” he said looking to Whitgift.

Immediately, Whitgift approached and laid a hand on Baines square shoulder. His hand weighed heavy, and Baines shifted, slightly uneasy.

“You'll be justly rewarded for your service, my son,” said Whitgift in a paternal voice.

“How?”

“Aside from everlasting glory in heaven – what think you of a priesthood and rectory?”

No response. Whitgift and Thomas traded looks. After a brief silence, Thomas leant forward, frustrated.

“So?” he demanded. “What will it be?”

Baines stared blankly at him.

“What?”

“Did you hear what was said?”

“Yes,” said Baines with a look of defiance. “But I want to be an archbishop.”

Whitgift pivoted away from the table and snorted derisively.

“For the love of Christendom!”

Thomas pressed his lips together.

“No, I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

“I won’t take less.”

“No, there are lots of bishops in England, Baines, but there are only two archbishops.” He waved two fingers before Baines’s nose. “And neither of them will ever be you.”

Baines didn't move. He switched his eyes around the room as if only half-understanding.

“Only two archbishops?”

“Anyway,” said Thomas curtly, “that's all – take the priesthood or forget it.”

For a moment, no one in the room spoke. Whitgift's shoes tapped on the floor and the breeze from his strides ruffled the gowns on pegs in the corner. Baines contorted his face into a grimace. He looked up meekly at Thomas hanging over him. Thomas narrowed his eyes. Baines hesitated and gave a small nod of acceptance.

SCENE FOUR

Marshalsea Prison.

K
it drifted in and out of consciousness. A blurry face asked him his name... his body moved with the sway of a cart... pain issued from his side... metal clanged in his right ear... rotting waste... flagstones beneath him... shafts of light from a window... a flat ceiling... echoes...

When he fully awakened, he found himself lying inside a large cell shared with ten other prisoners. A man with a matted beard sat nearby. Kit shifted upright, asked the man a few questions, and quickly learned the place of his incarceration: Marshalsea Prison.

Marshalsea stood on the edge of Southwark, far back from the Thames. At three hundred prisoners, Marshalsea was the most important prison in the land after the Tower. Opened in 1370, the prison had originally served the Knights Marshall of the Royal Household, but during Elizabeth's reign it had grown to contain an impressive collection of political prisoners. Debtors and petty thieves languished in cells next to wayward clerics, priests refusing to take the oath of allegiance, Catholic conspirators, treasonous plotters, atheists, rabble-rousers, poets, and all others destined for the noose or chopping block. As such, the prison had garnered a reputation for cruelty and shrieks were often heard leaching from the walls of the dungeon. Richard Topcliffe, the most sadistic torturer in England, was rumored to make his home at Marshalsea.

The prison itself consisted of thick-hewn slabs of stone piled three stories high, arranged in a quadrangle with a small recreational yard in the center. At every corner of the yard, black, flat-topped watchtowers rose above the ground, each mounted by a bored, but dutiful guard.

Inside the prison, narrow stone tunnels ran long and deep, itched by the faint-buzzing of flies. Moisture slicked the low ceilings and dripped onto the floor of cold, reeking cells full of men sickening from the damp.

In Kit's cell, some men paced, while others leant on the wall or lay quietly on beds of sawdust. On the front wall, flat bars stretched from the floor to the ceiling – the iron smoothed at the middle by centuries of gripping hands. A waste bucket sat in the far corner and the suffocating pong of excrement filled the cell at all times. Urine made the walls sticky. On the opposite wall to the bars, two windows with hefty grills brought sunlight and street noises to the prisoner's ears.