The Queen's Gold: A Christopher Marlowe Spy Thriller

by Steven Veerapen

  The Queen’s Gold

  Steven Veerapen

  © Steven Veerapen 2021.

  Steven Veerapen has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2021 by Sharpe Books.

  Table of Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  Author’s Note

  1

  Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Spring 1585

  It was the year that the Spanish stepped too far, and all talk was of war, and Thomas Lewgar, sensibly and safely ensconced in Cambridge, was pretending to be at his books. A beeswax candle burned low on his room’s single desk, shining merrily on a small, neat pile of borrowed editions of translations, a smaller pile of papers, and an empty inkpot, quill, and sharpening knife. Before him was spread open a volume, its pages thick, almost veined with quality. Staring up at him was Cicero’s De Amicitia. He had read the treatise before; he had enjoyed its philosophies regarding friendship being a single soul in two bodies.

  But not tonight.

  Tonight, his eyes kept wandering over to the candle. Its aurum glow held steady, washing over the little room. It was a mean enough place. In addition to the desk were a single stool, on which Lewgar sat, two clothes coffers, and a large cot built for two, its bed of straw and its strings sagging to the rush matting. Recently, it had increasingly felt only Lewgar’s own weight. His bedfellow was, like himself, a Parker scholar – a man of limited family means whose place was funded by the late Archbishop Matthew Parker’s scholarship. But unlike Lewgar, he was not a man who took the burden of learning seriously. After a glance over his shoulder at the bed and then back to the candle, he closed the book.

  It was time.

  He knew well enough that the floorboards creaked and so didn’t bother to slip on his shoes. In his stockings, on the balls of his feet, he crept to the door, opened it, and stuck his head out.

  Silence.

  The kind of silence that can become oppressive, especially to a man on a mission. And he wasn’t a particularly brave man, Thomas Lewgar, but a sensible one. Still, he had reasoned that even a coward might find his courage when pressed to it: more so, indeed, when he’s in the right.

  Windows directly across admitted only darkness from the gravelled Corpus Christi quadrangle below. Spring was a capricious season. Though it might admit a little more sun during the day, it was mean in relinquishing the dark nights. He stepped out into the shadowy tunnel of the hall, drawing the door closed behind him. With it went the candlelight, and the darkness enveloped him. To counter it, to show he didn’t care, he set off, one hand against the windowed wall.

  At the head of the hall, he met the stairwell. It was lighter here, or his eyes were used to the darkness – he could see the steps. Putting a hand out to the cool, smooth top of the newel post, he crept up.

  The bastard was upstairs again – he knew it. He’d given him time enough to settle to his business, whatever it was. Besides, during his previous disappearances, his unexplained nights away, his quarry had never returned until just before the dawn.

  Click.

  Lewgar froze.

  The sound had come from behind him, reverberating up the hall like a gunshot. It was a door, a latch, opening or closing. He slid around the newel post and ducked down. A little light had bloomed behind him. His heart began to speed.

  Thump.

  Click.

  The light disappeared.

  Relief washed through him; he exhaled it. It had only been one of his fellow students setting out his boots to be polished at dawn by whichever lower fellow he’d impressed as his slave. Besides, even if he’d seen Lewgar, he had prepared explanations for wandering the halls at night.

  And he’d dismissed them.

  There were many reasons to leave your bedchamber and none of them were well intentioned. If a fellow were spotted, however innocent or righteous his reasons, he’d find himself whispered about in the hall at dinner as a bawd, a gambler, a bugger, or a thief – and defending against such slanders only brought them to more ears.

  Even though he’d been set on this exercise – and willingly too, for his roommate was a boasting broadmouth – he didn’t relish the thought of having to fight Dame Rumour. And Vice Chancellor Tyndall had been coldly clear in his instructions not to get caught. Lewgar could expect no official protection.

  Lewgar had only been set to work that afternoon, when he had knocked on the Vice Chancellor’s door and stepped into the warmth of the great fireplace and the smell of burning sage.

  ‘Ah, Mr Lewgar. What news?’ Tyndall had been sitting on a high, carved chair behind a desk innocent of books but heavy with handwritten notes and letters, many of which bore fine seals, and all of which were scattered as though a great wind had invaded the room. It was evident where the vast fees which Cambridge drew in went: tall, leaded glass windows glinted with reflected firelight. Tapestries hung on every wainscoted wall, depicting dancing women in white robes. A sideboard held jugs and crystal glasses. Even the ceiling was painted in rich red and gold leaf. The Vice Chancellor was a great friend to the Queen’s favourite, the Earl of Leicester – he had, indeed, wed him to his wife – and his Honour had inflexible ideas about how a great man’s great man ought to live.

  Lewgar had given an eager bow, closing the door behind him, trying not to show his distaste at the disorderly jumble of papers. ‘Mr Marlowe,’ he said, his lip curling as he removed his cap, ‘is returned to his filthy business.’

  Tyndall’s thick eyebrow rose, drawing deep creases on his forehead. He made a sound in his throat and rolled his tongue in his cheek before clucking it. ‘Of nights.’

  ‘Of nights, your Honour.’

  Lewgar’s roommate, Christopher ‘it’s Kit’ Marlowe, was a problem. In addition to his having disappeared from the college – from all of Cambridge, in fact – the previous autumn, he had begun slipping out of their shared room. At first, it had been when he’d thought Lewgar asleep. Now, having grown bolder, the fellow had taken to disappearing even before that. It was that, more than anything – that utter disdain – which had maddened Lewgar enough to report on him. And so he had begun to do.

  ‘Does he intend some other flight from Cambridge?’ asked Tyndall. He leant forward, his black-robed elbows finding bare patches on the leather-topped desk.

  ‘I cannot say, sir.’ Tyndall, Lewgar noticed with frustration, looked more amused than annoyed.

  ‘Yet it is no crime. He is as free as you are to come and go. Our candidates for their Master’s degrees are not chained to the college. No, nor the town.’

  Lewgar fought the urge to roll his eyes. He had not been invited to sit – he never was. The Vice Chancellor seemed to enjoy having his students suffer discomfort of every kind. Besides, it might not be a rule that students should not disappear for weeks at a time, but it was hardly common that they should do so. He played his card. ‘Yet I have followed him once before now. He goes upstairs. I know the room.’

  At this, Tyndall made a little moue. ‘
Which room? Whose?’

  ‘One Tobias Ellwood.’

  Both eyebrows rose. The Vice Chancellor’s tongue darted out over his lips. It was faded, as though frosted. ‘Ellwood. A secretive fellow, that one.’ Lewgar nodded. In truth, he didn’t know the man. ‘And did you hear … what it is that passes in this room?’

  ‘No, sir. I … I made a note of the room and … I thought to come to you. It is not meet that he should be … wandering of nights. Surely.’

  ‘It is not encouraged.’ Tyndall looked down as he said this, drumming his fingers on his messy desk. They left soft imprints. ‘Mr Marlowe is a man, it seems, who does as he pleases, whether it advances his learning or otherwise.’

  ‘Most unsuitable,’ said Lewgar, shooting for agreement.

  Tyndall looked up sharply, his eyes slitted. ‘He is a nothing, Mr Marlowe – comes from no great or ancient family, as I understand.’ Lewgar said nothing, choosing to ignore the implied criticism of the Parker scholarship; but he felt hope bloom in his breast. It was quickly crushed when Tyndall went on. ‘I understand,’ he said, his voice shifting in tone to that of a parent speaking to a stupid child, ‘that you are more unfriend to Mr Marlowe than otherwise.’ Before Lewgar could speak, the Vice Chancellor raised a thick, blue-veined finger. ‘It is a pity that two men given over to one chamber should not be friends.’

  ‘But he breaks the rules,’ said Lewgar, unable to contain it. What use was Tyndall if he didn’t enforce them? Marlowe was a braggart. He ought to be dismissed.

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Perhaps worse,’ said Lewgar, lacing his words with meaning.

  ‘Have a care, Mr Lewgar. You have no proof of anything … of wickedness. And without proof you might find yourself charged with slander.’

  Lewgar swallowed. ‘I say nothing, sir. Not yet. Proof. I shall find you proof. Mr Marlowe is bringing shame upon the college. I shall find you proof.’ He had gone too far and his eyes darted to the thick carpet. The sides of his shoes were tickled by its soft fronts, caressed.

  ‘I, Mr Lewgar, am the master here. And it shall be me who decides what shames this college or otherwise. Not a creeping student, an – an – informant.’ Disgust dripped from the word. ‘Creep you away from me, boy. Creep you up on your unfriend Marlowe and come to me again if you have proof. And do not make a fool of yourself in the getting of it – do not be seen. I know that the fellow has some fancies of writing poesy.’

  Lewgar made a face. It was exactly that kind of thing that made Marlowe so distasteful. ‘Poesy. He is an Epicure, I reckon. No time for real learning. I’ve seen his scribblings. Musings on the Queen of Carthage.’

  Tyndall frowned too – but it seemed more at his student than at what he’d said. ‘I do not wish to hear that he wanders abroad at night to discuss Horace or Aristophanes with his friends, do you hear me, man? Only if you have proof of his lewdness. And then I shall decide whether it is he who brings shame on this place. Or, Mr Lewgar, if it is you.’

  Lewgar felt himself redden. His eyes wandered to the untidy desk and the urge came to topple it. The stupid old fool – the damned oaf. A thousand voices cried in his head, railing against Tyndall with every word he’d heard spoken against the old man: he was useless; he was incompetent; he was a grasping niggard who cared only for plundering the pockets of wealthy patrons.

  He said none of this. Nor did he topple the desk. Instead, he bowed and backed from the room, pausing only to say, ‘I shall fetch you your proofs, Vice Chancellor.’

  When he’d returned to his empty room, he had let forth a stream of obscenities. They had bounced off the walls, victimless, returning to strike at him. And he had vowed to not only rid the college of his lazy roommate, but to enjoy forcing Tyndall to admit he oversaw a college of iniquity.

  And that is precisely what he was going to do.

  Up one flight he went, fearful of missing a step in the dimness and falling, until he emerged at an identical hall to the one below. Here, too, silence reigned. After another deep breath, this to still his heart, and a look back down the stairwell, he edged his way along, counting doors as he went.

  He stopped when he reached the door he’d seen Marlowe go through before. He didn’t know the student, Ellwood, who occupied it, and had heard no bruits of his nature.

  Conscious again of creaking floorboards, he stopped. Breathing as shallowly as he could, he stepped across the hall, the windows now at his back. When he reached the door, he leant to it.

  No grunting came from within, no strangulated yips and barks and curses of lust.

  Instead, voices rose and fell softly, a stream meandering over stepping stones.

  Thankfully, the wood of the doors was thin. He pressed an ear to it.

  ‘… questions on the ship.’ This was unmistakeably Christopher Marlowe. As Lewgar well knew, the man either had trouble controlling the volume of his voice or he never cared to try.

  The next voice was softer, presumably Ellwood’s, with a touch of the country to it. ‘Not if they are well paid, no.’

  Marlowe again. ‘And watchers at the ports – now, with all this talk of war.’

  ‘A righteous war. I say nothing for Spain. Only that the true faith in this country will not be trampled. The Scotch queen cannot be caged forever.’

  Lewgar’s mouth fell open. An itch descended from his collar down his back.

  Run, he thought. Now.

  Marlowe spoke again. ‘Mary of Scotland is too old, surely, to be of use to us now. And her son is a heretic.’

  ‘Her Majesty is a sovereign princess and a daughter of the Church.’

  ‘Ay, ay,’ barked Marlowe. Amusement seemed to dance in his voice. ‘Yet it won’t be we who free her. All we can do is ensure that honest men get to where they’re going. We to them and they to us.’

  Treason, thought Lewgar.

  Excitement took him in its grasp, took him and shook him. He shivered with it. A creak ran through the floorboards and he froze, as he had on the stairwell.

  That voice in his head shrieked again for him to run.

  ‘And that is where the ships come in,’ went on Ellwood. Still quivering, Lewgar relaxed. They had heard nothing. And so much for their discussing Aristophanes and Horace. Marlowe was a closet papist, one of at least two, speaking treason in the Vice Chancellor’s own college. ‘More ships than ever will be fetching abroad. To harry the Spanish. An easy thing for a man to leave this place and cross the Narrow Sea. Ships. That’s why there’s such talk of the lost one returning.’ His voice turned wistful. ‘All that stolen Spanish gold.’

  His answer seemed to satisfy Marlowe; the vaunting voice burst out no more. Instead, the only sound from the other side of the door was a low whisper. Lewgar, careful this time to make no tell-tale creak, pressed his ear flat against the door.

  And all at once he was falling.

  ‘Well-a-day!’ boomed Marlowe over him. ‘Look what we have!’

  Lewgar scrambled about on the floorboards, rolling from his side to his back, hoisting himself up on his elbows. Immediately, he was pressed back down, and his roommate and his papist friend were on top of him, pinning his arms, crushing them.

  ‘Who is he?’ hissed Ellwood.

  Lewgar opened his mouth to cry out and Marlowe’s hand clamped over it. All he could see where the two hovering faces, one grinning with unfeigned good humour and the other drawn and pale.

  ‘Why, it seems we have a guest. Our very own peeping Actaeon. Ay, listening at doorways. I do think that he might have heard too much. What say you, my friend – must we silence him?’

  2

  ‘Who is he, Kit? Who is the listening cur? Is he one of us?’ asked Ellwood.

  A pause drew out. ‘Yes,’ said Marlowe, at length. His hand eased a little over Lewgar’s mouth, just enough to press meaning. ‘Why, it’s only my own dear bedfellow. Ach, he is one of us, truly.’ The fellow looked down on him. Marlowe had neat features, fair, almost like a woman’s. His tiny bow of a mouth was perman
ently turned up at the corners, fine crinkles were etched beside his eyes, and his frizzed cloud of auburn hair, too, gave him a delicate look. His eyes bored into Lewgar’s. They widened a fraction and then narrowed.

  Why is he protecting me? He wondered.

  ‘A mere jest,’ said Marlowe, pulling away his hand. Before Lewgar could speak, he said, ‘is that not right, Thomas?’ He turned to Ellwood – a tall, pale young man, who visibly relaxed. ‘Mr Lewgar here is one of us. Yet I thought him too shy to bring into our company.’ He began to rise, brushing down his doublet and patting his breeches before offering Lewgar a hand and helping him up. Reluctantly, confused, he took it. Even Marlowe’s hand was small. When Lewgar rose, he was a head higher.

  Marlowe stood back. He moved as he always did, lightly and lithely, like a dancer. His eyes sparkled. He seemed almost to be enjoying himself, revelling in his roommate’s discovery and discomfort.

  The bastard.

  ‘You’re as good a Catholic as I am,’ said Marlowe. ‘Are you not?’

  Fear stiffened Lewgar’s spine. He opened his mouth to speak and then closed it. ‘I …’

  The other fellow stepped closer. Lewgar wished he’d brought his sharpening knife, at least. He doubted he could have wielded it, and certainly not against two, but it would have made a showing. ‘I am as Catholic as you are,’ he said. There was no choice, of course, but still the words hung in the air, stinking, threatening to slice up his belly and draw out his guts. Shame immediately flooded him. He could scarcely imagine what his parents might say at hearing those words trip from his tongue, even to save himself. His father had been the vicar of Wymondham! His head swam. There would, surely, be some scriptural approval for counterfeiting evil in the teeth of enemies. He was sure he’d heard tales of men doing exactly that to bring papists to punishment.

  ‘Do you swear by him, Kit?’ asked Ellwood.

  ‘Certainly I do,’ said Marlowe, putting his hands on his hips. ‘Mr Lewgar came to the light before I did. He has been suffering in silence, friendless, this long time.’ Ellwood said nothing, but his eyes narrowed on the uninvited guest. In the cheerful candlelight, they appeared the colour of thick honey. ‘I think we might bid you goodnight. I will school dear Thomas here on the value of secrecy.’