Witch Hammer (22 page)

Smocked labourers in their fields saw them go and tugged off their caps to mark the passing of a funeral on the road. And the rooks, black against the sun, bickered and fought in the tall elms. Thomas sat hunched on the second wagon’s tail, surrounded by costumes and women who patted him. The tears were tumbling down his cheeks still as Marlowe rode alongside. For seconds together, the lad could put aside his loss and then it would sweep across him brand new and searing, all over again. He knew he would get used to it one day, but he knew it would be no day soon.

‘He was the best of us, Kit,’ the boy said, ‘The Player King. We shan’t see his like again.’

Marlowe nodded.

‘And the worst of it is, it’s all my fault.’ He buried his head in his hands.

Liza yanked him hard around the neck, her idea of a cuddle. ‘I keep telling him, Master Marlowe, but he don’t listen.’

‘How is it your fault, Thomas?’ the poet asked.

‘I was asleep,’ Thomas shouted as if God Himself did not know. ‘I was on guard duty and I fell asleep. Any of those bastards from Greville’s camp could have slipped past me in the dark.’

‘But Scot’s confessed, Thomas,’ Marlowe lied.

The boy frowned up through his tears. ‘Has he?’ he asked.

Marlowe shrugged. ‘As good as.’

Thomas shook his head. ‘Makes no sense,’ he said, trying to rationalize it. ‘What had Scot got against Ned? You don’t kill a man for no reason.’

‘If that’s true,’ Marlowe said, ‘then Scot is a liar and the killer has to be one of us.’

He watched Thomas’s face change, darken with the realization of it. ‘No,’ he said, sniffing. ‘That’s not possible. We all loved Ned.’ He looked around as if waiting for someone to challenge that statement. No one did. And he buried his face in his hands again, missing the man who had taken him in as a child, taught him to curtsy and how to wear a stomacher and farthingale. Greater love has no actor-manager.

Marlowe reached out an arm and patted the boy. ‘Look after him, Liza,’ he said and hauled his rein back so that the wagons rolled past and he turned the animal to amble with the riders at the back of the column.

‘Damned hot, Marlowe,’ Hayward grunted, trying to ease his ruff. ‘Look, I’m sorry about earlier, at the camp, I mean. We’re all a bit on edge.’

Marlowe nodded. ‘Think nothing of it, Master Hayward. I never thanked you properly for riding to our rescue like that. Happy coincidence, wasn’t it?’

Hayward reined in and his horse halted. Marlowe did the same. ‘All right,’ Hayward said, ‘let’s have this out in the open once and for all. How long have you been with Strange’s Men?’

‘About two weeks,’ Marlowe told him.

‘And before that?’

Marlowe turned his animal’s head and the pair rode on again. ‘Before that I was a scholar at Cambridge.’

‘So you don’t really know Strange?’

‘No. I never met the man until two weeks ago. The troupe was on its way to Stratford and I came upon them on the road. I had met Sledd before, in Cambridge last year.’

‘Sledd handled the finances, did he?’ Hayward asked.

‘I really don’t know.’ Marlowe frowned. ‘From what I saw, that might have been Lord Strange himself.’

‘Yes,’ Hayward growled. ‘What do you make of that, Marlowe?’

‘Of what, Master Hayward?’

‘Come, come, sir.’ Hayward eased his stiff neck from its position, watching the riders in the distance. ‘You’re a university man and I assume you weren’t born yesterday. First the troupe’s sponsor is taken peculiar and then the troupe’s leader is murdered. If I didn’t know better, I’d say somebody had it in for Lord Strange’s Men, wouldn’t you?’

‘Greville’s not with them.’ Will Shaxsper was certain. He was at the rear of the column that afternoon as they trotted past Glympton with its little church and cluster of thatched roofs.

‘I think you’re right,’ Marlowe said with a nod. ‘I wonder how Captain Paget is feeling now he can’t pick his nose so easily.’

‘Was it one of them, do you think, Kit?’ Shaxsper asked. ‘One of Greville’s people who killed Sledd?’

‘If you look carefully ahead, Will,’ Marlowe said, humouring the man, ‘you’ll see a certain Reginald Scot tied at the cart’s tail. His bodkin was found in Sledd’s throat, after all.’

‘You don’t believe that, do you, Kit?’ Shaxsper asked. ‘I mean, it’s so obvious, isn’t it?’

‘Do you play cards, Will?’ Marlowe asked. ‘Cent? Lansquenet?’

‘Sometimes,’ Shaxsper said.

‘The double bluff.’ Marlowe tapped the side of his nose. ‘Scot leaves his obvious weapon for us to find, so that we’ll think just what you think. “Too obvious.” It must be somebody else.’

‘Murder will out,’ Shaxsper said grimly. ‘Beware the smiler with the knife.’

‘That’s rather good.’ Marlowe smiled. ‘Chaucer, isn’t it?’ Marlowe had passed too many clandestine quotes off as his own to be fooled by one as obvious as that one.

‘Umm . . . is it?’ Shaxsper asked, all hurt innocence, inwardly furious that Marlowe had his measure.

‘It is.’ Marlowe tapped the man’s elbow. ‘If you’re going to be a success in London, Will,’ he warned him, ‘don’t be a borrower – or a lender if it comes to that. Write your own stuff, there’s a good boy.’

‘Joseph.’ Marlowe had to raise his voice over the rumble and rattle of the wagon. ‘How goes it?’

The tragedian of Lord Strange’s Men was in his element, three sheets to the wind on some of the choice Malmsey that Boscastle had smuggled out of Clopton Hall. The fruit of the vine had always made old Joseph lachrymose, but this evening, as the sun’s shadows lengthened ahead of them on the road as they wound through the cornfields to Woodstock, he was positively awash in tears.

‘I can’t get poor young Ned out of my mind,’ he bellowed in what to him was a stage whisper.

‘A great loss,’ Marlowe agreed.

‘Yes,’ Joseph sighed. ‘Especially as I am responsible.’

Marlowe urged his horse closer so that his left leg was jammed against the cart’s side. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Yes, you’re right. Or at least as clean as you can be on the road all the time,’ Joseph said, agreeing with something only he had heard and Marlowe had to pause a moment to work out what it could be. ‘But we were talking of my terrible responsibility,’ the old man boomed.

Marlowe could tell the best he could do in this conversation was to hop and skip along and hope to be dancing the same dance once in a while. ‘How are you responsible?’ he asked, enunciating each word like bells.

Joseph looked backward, then forward and at one time down at the ground as he momentarily lost his balance. He hugged the Malmsey bottle to his chest for comfort. ‘I saw him last night,’ he said.

‘Ned?’

‘No, no.’ Joseph shook his head and closed his eyes. ‘His murderer.’

‘You did? When was this?’

‘Last night,’ Joseph said, wondering what sort of idiot they had writing plays these days.

‘Who was it?’ Marlowe could hear nothing now but his own voice rising about the thud of his own heart. People down the column were turning to look.

‘Well, that’s just it.’ Joseph’s face was a picture of helplessness. ‘I don’t know. It was late. I was . . . tired.’ He glanced down at the bottle. ‘It may be that I had had a spot to drink, to keep out the cold, you know, the damp ground . . . I couldn’t focus. He fell over me to start with, in the dark, between the wagons and when I asked who goes, he said, “Where’s Ned?” I told him, I said, “Over there, by the King Stone.”’

‘And that’s where he went?’ Marlowe asked. ‘This murderer of yours? Towards the King Stone?’

‘No.’ Joseph tried desperately to remember. ‘No, he went the other way, towards . . . the other way.’

‘What did he say, Joseph?’ Marlowe asked him, leaning in as far as horse, jolting wagon and Joseph’s breath would allow. ‘
Exactly
, now. Word for word.’ His heart fell as he suddenly realized that ‘word for word’ and Joseph had parted company long ago. Even so, for a moment at least, hope sprang eternal.

Joseph had not always seen eye to eye with Ned Sledd but he had been as fond of him as the rest of Lord Strange’s Men, perhaps more so, as he could see himself in him, before the drink and age had done their dread work. So he really tried as hard as he could to remember the night before, which, as far as his memory was concerned, might just as well have been a decade ago. Joseph was waiting for the moment when distant memory was clear as day; he couldn’t remember anything at all before breakfast and that only applied until about midday. Then it was anything before dinner.

‘He said . . .’ His face was screwed up with the effort of remembering. ‘He said “Where’s Ned?” He might have said something else, but I didn’t catch it. People mumble these days, don’t you find? Well, anyway, I said . . .’ His eyes widened and his face reddened as it all came back to him. ‘I said, “Where would you expect a man like Ned to be? By the King Stone, of course.” Oh, God –’ and his voice rumbled deep with sorrow – ‘I sent him to his grave. I may as well have thrust that bodkin into his throat myself. And the throat, of all places! That golden voice, those syllables that soared aloft like . . . like . . .’ He glanced around for inspiration. ‘Pigeons!’ It didn’t sound right, but a swig of the bottle soon sorted that out.

‘No, no, Joseph.’ Marlowe patted the man’s sinewy arm. ‘It was probably just a dream. You were tired. You may have had a drink and we had all had an exciting day. The mind plays tricks. Don’t worry. We’ll find out who killed Ned. I promise.’

And he hauled on the rein again, leaving the old man to wrestle with his demons.

At first she had protested. Then, when he countered each of her arguments one by one, she just stood defiant and alone, looking first at Marlowe, then at Boscastle. She knew they were right. And it would only be for a short time. And Boscastle would be with her.

‘Would the queen want a disinherited Papist under her roof, Kit?’ she had asked him.

‘The Queen knows all about what it feels like to be disinherited, My Lady and she has not been under the roof of Woodstock Manor for more years than we have been alive, you and I. They say her steward there is a kindly man. He has, I am told, daughters of his own and his wife will not turn away an orphan of the storm.’

She looked at Boscastle again and knew a male conspiracy when she saw one. He read her mind. ‘Our people will be safe enough on the road, My Lady,’ he said. ‘But you and . . . the coffin . . . will be safe in the manor house. And I shall be at your side.’

He saw her father in her briefly, before age and sadness had taken him, a bear of a man who knew his own mind and would not be crossed. Her eyes smouldered just like his.

‘Very well,’ she said. ‘But only until such time as the authorities in Oxford can disperse the rabble at our heels.’

‘We’ll have to be quick and we’ll have to be careful,’ Marlowe said. ‘Boscastle, can you have the bier limbered by midnight at the back of the Woolsack? There’s a quiet lane that will lead you out of sight of Greville’s men. It will have to be just the two of you; more will attract notice. Can you do it?’

Boscastle nodded. ‘Leave it to me,’ he said.

‘What about Master Sledd’s body?’ she asked. ‘Surely, his people . . .’

‘. . . would want it given a decent burial,’ Marlowe said. ‘They have nowhere to call home, no churchyard where their dead are laid. Ask the steward at Woodstock to lend some earth to a good man and make sure he is laid in it with respect. He will live forever where anyone forgets a line.’

‘We’ll do that,’ Joyce said. ‘And we’ll make sure he has a marker, for if his people ever pass that way.’

‘He’d like that,’ Marlowe said. ‘Make sure you spell it right – he was very proud of that double dee.’

‘Kit . . . this isn’t your way of getting rid of us, is it? You’re not abandoning us?’

‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘Once we’re in Oxford, I’ll send word to the magistrates. We’ll be back in three days at most.’

She looked into those dark dancing eyes. ‘Three days,’ she said. ‘Or I’ll go toe to toe with Edward Greville myself.’

The candles fluttered against their reflections in the window panes like so many moths, sending magical lights radiating around Richard Cawdray’s room. He and Simon Hayward had taken rooms at the Woolsack, anxious to have soft beds after a hard day on the road.

‘What do you make of it, Master Cawdray?’ Marlowe sipped his wine. ‘Scot and Ned Sledd?’

‘Bizarre.’ Cawdray shook his head. ‘Quite bizarre.’

‘He said it could be witchcraft,’ Marlowe told him.

‘Who?’

‘Scot. Obviously trying to muddy the waters. He’s guilty as a pikestaff.’

‘What will you do with him?’

‘Well, tomorrow, I’ll pass him over to the town constable, if they have one. If not, we’ll take him on to Oxford. Tell me, how long have you known Simon Hayward?’

‘Er . . . we met on the road on our respective ways to Stratford. I do so love the theatre, you see. That’s why I particularly wanted to see Lord Strange’s Men in action. The great Ned Alleyn in particular.’

‘Except that the great Ned Alleyn isn’t here, of course,’ Marlowe remarked.

‘He’s not? I thought . . .’

‘If you had found us earlier, say two weeks ago, you’d have met him then. He left, though.’

‘Left?’ Cawdray raised an eyebrow. ‘Dramatic differences?’

‘Theft,’ Marlowe said, crisply. ‘He stole my play.’

‘The devil,’ said Cawdray. ‘No honour among thespians, eh? I expect you’d like to run into Master Alleyn again?’

‘It would be an . . . experience,’ Marlowe admitted. ‘They tell me Martin is just as good, so I’m sure Alleyn’s lack won’t spoil your enjoyment when you finally get to see us in action. Shaxsper is coming along too, now he has stopped being such a hot-headed idiot. But, tell me, Master Cawdray, do you think that Reginald Scot is guilty?’

Cawdray shrugged. ‘I would have thought the bodkin speaks for itself,’ he said.

‘Yes.’ Marlowe smiled. ‘Yes, probably. So, you’ll stay with us to Oxford?’

‘I wouldn’t miss it. What are you going to perform? I suppose with Master Sledd gone it will be difficult.’

‘We’ll send young Thomas on ahead tomorrow to look out the ground for us. We probably won’t perform in a college; they’d expect erudition, scholarship, rhetoric.’