Witch Hammer (27 page)

‘Well, out with it,’ Marlowe said. For a lad who had spent his whole career so far playing girls by the time-honoured method of swinging his skirts and giggling behind straw hair, he certainly knew how to milk an audience.

‘Alleyn’s with them.’

‘Who?’ Scot asked.

‘Ned Alleyn,’ Marlowe repeated, grimly. Then he turned. ‘Your favourite, Master Cawdray. Don’t worry. We won’t find it disloyal if you go to watch him rather than our little offering.’

‘I can’t wait,’ Cawdray said with a smile. ‘To have two plays to see is far more than I could ever have hoped for.’

‘What’s the play they’re doing, Thomas?’ Marlowe asked. ‘I don’t think I could stand another round of
Rafe Roister Doister
.’

A strange light flitted across the boy’s face. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘apparently, according to the playbills, it’s something Alleyn wrote himself. It’s called
The Tragedy of Dido, Queen of Carthage
.’ Thomas stepped back. He had never seen a messenger actually shot, but he had often seen one dealt a nasty one in the mouth and he was anxious to avoid that if he could.

‘
Dido
,’ Marlowe said, calmly, ‘
Queen of Carthage
, no less. Well, gentlemen,’ he turned to Scot, Hayward and Cawdray. ‘Please don’t get too worked up about the exciting prospect of the great Ned Alleyn as Aeneas, although I am sure his performance would have been one to tell your grandchildren about. He won’t be appearing after all.’

Thomas looked doubtful. ‘It’s on all the playbills, Kit,’ he said.

‘Very possibly,’ Marlowe said. ‘But he won’t be appearing, nevertheless.’

‘Why not?’ Cawdray asked. Thomas was smiling now, having worked out the likely reason.

‘Because I will have killed him,’ Marlowe said, simply. ‘Well . . .’ He rubbed his hands together as well as his wound would allow and turned towards his horse. ‘Shall we, gentlemen? I am stopping off at Woodstock. And your good selves?’

‘Straight back to Oxford,’ Thomas said.

‘I may go home for a day or so,’ Hayward said. ‘And a bath.’ He turned to Cawdray. ‘You’re most welcome, if you would like to stay. Or I could meet you in Oxford. You could get the rooms.’

‘I could do with a hot bath,’ Cawdray said. ‘If not several. I’ll consider my plans as we ride.’ And the two men mounted up and walked their mounts off down the road.

‘Master Scot?’ Marlowe asked.

‘I think I have all Merriweather has to tell me,’ Scot said. ‘I will accompany Thomas, I think, straight to Oxford. Hart Hall will doubtless be happy to provide me with a bath and a change of clothing for old time’s sake.’

‘Well, until Oxford, then,’ Marlowe said and he turned his horse’s head to Woodstock and whatever he might find there.

Marlowe took the winding road through Over Norton and cantered through the growing dawn light down the Glyme valley, the horse’s hoofs thudding on the hard, dry ground. The cocks were crowing and the harvesters were on their way to their fields by the time he crossed the old Roman road called Akeman Street and saw the lazily smoking chimneys of Woodstock and the pale, mellow bulk of its church.

‘Halt!’ he heard a shout and the clash of weapons as he reached the camp by the river. ‘Who goes?’

‘Edward Greville,’ he called back.

The guards looked at each other. Even in the silver grey of dawn it was clear that the man was the wrong size, the wrong age and he was riding the wrong horse. Halberds came to the level, men tumbled out of canvas, bleary eyed and regretting their flagons of the previous night. Captain Paget was among them, his right hand heavily bandaged and his arm hanging oddly, numb to the shoulder, the nerves exhausted with the constant pain.

‘What’s the meaning of this?’ he snarled at Marlowe who sat his horse calmly, staring him down.

‘Paget?’ a dishevelled Henry Blake was at his elbow, struggling into his robes and trying to look important. ‘What’s going on here?’

‘You may remember me, Master Lawyer,’ Marlowe said. ‘I have a little present for you. Call it an offering.’ He suddenly turned in the saddle and hauled a bundle over in front of him, using his left hand. He unknotted the white cloth from round something big and threw it down, letting it hit the ground with a thud at Blake’s feet. It was the head of a hideous goat, its glass eyes staring dumbly up at Greville’s men who stood back, nonplussed. One of its gilded horns was bent at a rakish angle and the hair was matted and wet.

‘What
is
that?’ Blake felt obliged to ask.

Marlowe shook his head, tutting. ‘The rubbish the Inns of Court are turning out these days is a disgrace,’ he said. ‘See if you do any better with this.’ Marlowe threw something bright and shiny to the lawyer, who stepped back, confused. Paget was faster and caught it deftly in his left hand, something he would have to do for quite a while. His eyes widened as he realized what it was.

‘Sir Edward’s signet ring,’ he said.

Blake snatched it from his open palm and scowled at the Greville arms in enamel on the ring’s surface. ‘How did you come by this?’ he asked Marlowe.

‘I took it from the dead finger of Edward Greville as he lay naked at the Rollright Stones. That –’ and he pointed to the ghastly head – ‘was on his shoulders at the time and he was the . . . guest of honour, shall we say . . . at what the witches call a Sabbat.’

Paget gaped and most of his men crossed themselves.

Blake was flustered. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, you’re lying.’

‘You have been serving Satan, Master Lawyer,’ Marlowe said, ‘but now the time has come to give up your soul.’

‘My soul?’ Blake blinked and was suddenly aware that Paget and the others were moving away from him, their halberds and pikes pointing in his direction.

‘You will be dragged to Hell any time now,’ Marlowe told him. ‘Isn’t that how it works?’ He smiled as Blake dropped to his knees, mumbling what sounded like the Lord’s Prayer, only in English and very definitely the right way round. ‘Or –’ Marlowe leaned forward in the saddle – ‘to be a little more prosaic for a moment, you are out of a job, lickspittle. When news of Greville’s little debauchery reaches the authorities – as it more or less has by now – his estates will be forfeit to the crown. You and Paget here will be lucky to escape with a year or two in the Clink. Unless of course it can be proved that you were actually part of the infernal happenings at the stones.’

Blake still knelt there. ‘As God is my judge and witness,’ he gabbled, ‘I know nothing of that. I knew there were some cunning women, but surely every village has those. His friends, Sir Edward called them. He would . . . consult them, now and then. There was one, he called her the Maiden. Dorothy, her name is, she works in the Clopton kitchens. Everyone around knows Dorothy.’ He threw a glance behind him. ‘I would wager half these men know Dorothy. So when Sir Edward called her the Maiden, well, I thought he was having a joke.’

Marlowe knew for certain that Sir Edward didn’t joke about things like that. He gestured Blake to carry on.

‘He wasn’t doing anything wrong. The Queen herself has her own magus.’

‘Dr Dee.’ Marlowe nodded. ‘He’s a friend of mine. A more honourable man never drew breath. Edward Greville was a devil-worshipper. Last night he even played the part himself.’ He half smiled. ‘As a playwright, I have to say he wasn’t half bad.’

‘That’s enough!’ Paget shouted. His men were already dashing to saddle their horses, leaving the makeshift camp as it stood. He turned back to Blake. ‘You’re on your own now, lawyer,’ he grunted and, sneering at Marlowe, made for the horse lines.

Blake knelt there, terrified and lost, trembling for what was and what might have been. Marlowe urged his horse past him, then reined in and looked down into the man’s abject face. He held his gaze for a heartbeat or two and then came to a decision. He drove his boot into Blake’s injured shoulder, without malice or temper, but in pure retribution. Blake screamed and clutched his arm as he fell sideways in the dust.

‘That,’ Marlowe said, ‘is for Sir William Clopton.’

He had done this before. It wasn’t his college or even his town, but there was a monotony about university buildings, a predictability about the proctors who patrolled them after curfew. He recognized the tap of their pattens, saw the darting beams of their lanterns and did what he had always done at Corpus Christi, melted into the background, merged with the dark. Blackness now, as then, was his friend.

He’d learned all he needed on the streets that evening and while Lord Strange’s Men were setting up camp on Christ Church Meadow and Cawdray and Hayward were unpacking their few overnight traps in bedrooms in a cosy inn, Kit Marlowe was creeping up the back stairs of Brasenose College on a mission to right a wrong. He tapped on the studded door at the stair’s top, where the landing twisted to the left and he waited.

‘Who is it?’ a voice called from inside the room.

‘Butler’s pantry,’ Marlowe said, affecting what he hoped was an authentic Oxford burr.

‘I didn’t order . . . wait a minute . . .’

He heard the scrape of furniture and the padding of feet. The door squeaked open to reveal a ferret of a man with wild grey hair and an elaborately smocked and embroidered nightshirt. Lights from candles danced on his spectacles. He looked his visitor up and down. The man appeared to be carrying no tray, no flagon, no platter. And were Brasenose doing so well they could dress their servants like roisterers?

‘Who are you?’ the little man asked. He peered through his spectacles and then over them, pushing them back up his nose with the knuckle of a forefinger. ‘You are not from the Pantry.’

‘That is very true,’ Marlowe said. ‘I am Christopher Marlowe.’

‘Never heard of you.’ The little man started to close the door. ‘I don’t buy at the door. Go away.’

Marlowe was quick and had a booted foot between the door and the jamb before the other man could give the wood any momentum. ‘I want to speak to you,’ he said, leaving his foot there despite the increasing pressure.

‘What do you want?’

‘Just some answers,’ Marlowe said. He took advantage of a slight reduction in the man’s efforts with the door and pushed him back into the room. He closed the door behind him.

‘You
do
know who I am?’ the man in the nightshirt checked with his unwelcome visitor.

‘You are William Somerset,’ Marlowe told him.

‘That’s the third Earl of Worcester to you, sonny. This may be Oxford, but Jack is not, I’m afraid, as good as his master. I’d like a bit of respect, if you please.’

Marlowe liked the cut of this man. For all he knew, Christopher Marlowe was a hired assassin bent on slitting the throat of all nobility, but, unarmed and alone as he was, he defiantly looked his would-be killer straight in the eye.

‘When you have earned it, My Lord,’ Marlowe said, smiling to put the man even more at ease. ‘And that will be when you explain this.’ And he threw a handbill on to Worcester’s desk. The Earl adjusted his spectacles and held the paper out at arm’s length. ‘Not a misprint, surely?’ he growled. ‘I really can’t be held responsible. The University printers . . . not really up to rush jobs, I’m afraid. Their usual print time is measured in decades, I believe. Now, hush and let me read.’ He ran a finger along the lines, muttering under his breath, pausing now and again with a querulous little mew and then continuing. Finally, he said, ‘A few mistakes, I grant you. An unusual way of spelling Carthage, with a “j” like that, but far from the worst I have seen. As I say, the University printers . . .’

‘. . . have got the name of the playwright wrong,’ Marlowe said flatly.

‘What?’ Worcester blinked and took off his spectacles, polished them carefully on a small unembroidered piece of his nightshirt and replaced them on his nose. ‘Alleyn? No, I’m sure there is always a “y” in it.’

‘The only why, My Lord,’ Marlowe said, ‘is why you believed such a callow youth could write a masterpiece like
Dido
.’

Worcester nodded. ‘It is rather good.’ His face changed immediately. ‘Now, I won’t have that. Ned Alleyn may be rather young . . .’

‘And he may be rather light-fingered,’ Marlowe said, adding to the man’s credentials.

‘What do you mean, sir?’ Worcester asked.

‘I mean, sir,’ Marlowe said through gritted teeth, ‘that Ned Alleyn stole the play from me. What should be written there –’ and he stabbed at the playbill with an angry finger – ‘under that emotive little word “by” is the name Christopher Marlowe.’

Worcester peered at him closely and then turned away and picked up a candle, holding it so close to Marlowe’s face that there was a faint smell of burning beard. Marlowe backed away, pushing the man’s arm down to a less dangerous level.

Worcester gave a spluttering laugh. ‘You say that Alleyn could not have written this work because he is too young,’ he said, checking his facts.

‘I do, sir.’

‘So, my next question, Master . . .’

‘Marlowe.’

‘Yes, Marlowe, is this. How old are you?’

‘I am twenty-one, sir.’

‘So, in the thirty-six long months that you have lived longer than Master Alleyn, you have learned to put these golden words each in line, one after the other, have you? Three years ago, you would have been unable to do this?’

‘No.’ Marlowe realized that this little man in his overdecorated nightshirt was no fool. ‘No. I could write like this . . . or almost like this . . . when I was eighteen. But –’ as he spoke he knew that he could only sound petulant, but he carried on anyway – ‘I don’t think that you believe Master Alleyn can.’

‘Why not?’ Worcester asked, simply.

‘Because . . . because he is a foolish popinjay who looks well on stage and can seduce any woman alive. Because he is a thief and a braggart and walked off with my play when my back was turned.’ He felt his anger all but boil over. ‘I wrote it, dammit, plain and simple. The play is mine!’

‘The Devil you say,’ Worcester thundered.

‘I do,’ Marlowe said, standing his ground.

The little man put down his candle and folded his arms across his chest. ‘There must be a way out of this impasse,’ he mused, ostentatiously putting a finger to his brow as though in deep thought. ‘I know.’ He narrowed his eyes at Marlowe and said, ‘Prove it. Tell me the story, quote me some lines.’