The Queen's Gold: A Christopher Marlowe Spy Thriller

by Steven Veerapen

  But there was a fevered intensity in his gaze whenever he’d looked at the unwinding road ahead.

  Christopher Marlowe, Lewgar decided, was a man driven onwards, ever onwards – but what it was precisely that drove him, whether fear or excitement or ambition or some admixture of them all, was harder to discern.

  And, in truth, he didn’t care.

  He had ridden with the man out of fear himself, and because London lay on the road back to Cambridge. He had decided, perhaps before they’d even left Wembury, that he would abandon his dangerous companion at the first opportunity. The man was a drunkard, he was foolhardy, and he invited dangerous company. That was twice now that he had courted death – on the wreck of the Sparrowhawk and even in bed, through entangling himself with some wicked creature or other.

  If Mr Marlowe wished to get himself killed, and it appeared he did, he could go to it himself.

  The only thing Lewgar hadn’t yet decided upon was whether to reveal the details of the man’s hazardous adventuring to the Vice Chancellor or to keep it to himself. It was beginning to seem like bad form to report on a man one had travelled with, whatever his vices and however scattered his wits…

  ‘Well, Thomas,’ Marlowe said, stepping up the sloping road and putting his back to the wall protecting the ancient cathedral. He gave a theatrical yawn and then squinted upwards. Lewgar followed his gaze. A flock of gulls were winging their way riverward, to where the roofs of the bridge’s shops and houses stood tall. ‘Now we are here, we might rest awhile.’

  Lewgar took a breath. To tell him now, or to wait.

  ‘Very well,’ he said, looking up the street. Nearer to the bridge, the crowds were thicker. On the way to Wembury from Cambridge, they had lodged for a night in an inn on East Cheap. ‘Well?’

  Marlowe, grinning, pushed himself off the wall and rolled his shoulders. When he took his beast’s bridle, he did not begin leading it onwards, but back in the direction they’d come. What now? Lewgar didn’t even know why he was surprised. With a weary resignation, he trudged along as Marlowe hopped the central sewer channel and its flow of grey-brown sludge.

  They did not go so far south as the commotion, though Lewgar could see it had broken up. Instead, his companion stopped midway down the High Street, where several large buildings stared moodily at each other from either side of the road, like wrestlers not quite sure of one another.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Here,’ said Marlowe, gesturing at one of the buildings. ‘The Tabard. I am in no mood to cross the bridge and would like something of Southwark and its life.’ Lewgar narrowed his eyes at the place. A sign hung outside the door, to be sure. Painted on it was the upper half of a man in – naturally – a quartered tabard; he was raising his blue cap in salute and a crude smile split his face. The inn itself was broad fronted, with a heavy door. Insects batted against its whitewashed plaster walls.

  ‘What about that other?’ asked Lewgar, turning and pointing over the heads of the milling southbankers towards another building, this one washed in rose pink, with a red tile roof, and looking somewhat like an out-of-place manor house. Squatted in its proud shadow was a far uglier grey stone building with small, barred windows. Strangely, it was this one which bore a sign: a white-painted lion rampant.

  ‘Ha!’ Marlowe shook his head. ‘Yonder fine place – I do not know its name. But The White Lion next door to it, my dear Thomas … if you wish to rest your head there, you had better get your knife out and begin cutting purse strings.’

  ‘What?’ Lewgar looked again at the stone structure.

  ‘It is used for a gaol. I imagine that fine pile towering by it is used for justices or the like when they are called to condemn the wretches lodging behind bars.’

  Lewgar felt himself colour. He swallowed, trying to think of some clever response. It wouldn’t come. ‘Here, then,’ he said at length, jerking his head towards The Tabard.’ Without waiting for Marlowe and avoiding meeting what he felt sure would be a crinkling smile, he tugged on his horse’s bridle and skirted the inn’s front, slipping under the timber-framed archway that led to the innyard.

  They passed their horses to a grubby-fingered groom and waved off an ostler who tried to take their packs – spare hose, shirts and nightshirts all tied up by their arms and legs – before entering the taproom via the backdoor.

  The air of the inn was stale and heavy, like damp wool. From across the room drifted the note of a pipe, rising and falling skilfully. The low hum of conversation was punctuated by laughs and the occasional louder voice. A woman’s was highest – querulous, complaining, ‘…that it ain’t right that the price goes up in not more than a week. And I say it ain’t right!’ Lewgar traced the voice to its owner. She was a blowzy woman, her coif barely holding in red curls, and her victim appeared to be the tapster, who stood mute, his arms folded, behind the bar.

  ‘Would you play at dice with me, lads?’ Lewgar started. The voice belonged to a sallow young fellow who had emerged seemingly from nowhere. ‘I’m a poor student without cash to get home after Easter.’

  ‘And we are no gulls,’ said Marlowe. ‘Get gone.’ Mumbling under his breath, the fellow did, retreating into a dark corner. Marlowe struck out across the room, his boots thudding on the boards as he dodged between carpet-covered tables in the direction of the bar. The unhappy patroness did not break off her rant, but relief washed over the tapster’s narrow, pinched face. ‘Good morrow sir, and can I ’elp you?’

  ‘Oi!’ the woman said. She thumped a fist on the table and threw Marlowe an indignant look. ‘You ain’t finished dealing with me, ’illyard.’

  Marlowe had tucked his pack under his arm and was giving her a deep bow as Lewgar traced his path towards the bar. ‘My dear lady. I apologise. We have ridden hard on the Queen’s business and crave a rest for the night.’

  ‘My dear…’ said the woman. She gave herself a little shake. ‘You think I’m daft?’ She pointed at her head. ‘I ain’t no fool.’ She looked at the tapster. ‘Don’t think you can overcharge me and use some coney-catching lad to ’elp. I ain’t no fool.’

  ‘A room, gentlemen?’ asked the tapster. He had apparently decided ignoring her entirely was his best chance of being free of her.

  ‘You’re a thief, is what you are!’ she cried. This time she widened her appeal, turning on the spot with a swish of her skirts to address the room. ‘Buy no beer from this house,’ she barked. ‘None of you – d’ye hear me? This man is a thief!’

  Lewgar licked his lips, torn between letting Marlowe handle the matter or not. ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘we are students.’ He stopped there; let her think them men of the Inns of Court, young lawyers. It was not a lie – it was an omission. ‘What you have just spoken is slander, which might affect this fellow’s trade. It might go the worse for you, should he take you through the common law courts.’

  Her eyes blazing, the woman opened her mouth to shout at him. And then she blanched. Realising, he supposed, that what he said was true. She was a slanderer, unless she could prove that the proprietor was a thief. Her mouth worked silently as she pushed her way past the two newcomers with an infuriated click of her pattens, and only when she was halfway towards the front door of the taproom did she begin muttering to herself. Silence fell. The pipe ceased. Heads swivelled from various tables, all staring without shame at what might have been a fight or a drama worth the watching.

  When the door banged, Marlowe said, ‘that was fine work, Thomas. Well done of you.’

  Lewgar didn’t answer him. Instead, he spoke to the tapster. ‘Well, sir – you are free of your troublesome woman. And you might, indeed, have her in the courts.’

  The fellow gave a grin, showing a fair number of good teeth. ‘Old Joan? Old Joan’s one of me best customers,’ he said. ‘Court for old Joan, sir? Never.’ He put his hand on his breast. ‘She just enjoys a good tongue wag, does Joanie. A hazard of trade, it is, to have good customers who like to speak wildly about the prices.’ He shook his head r
uefully. ‘Didn’t have no call to call me that, though, sir. No sharp business in this house. You are young lawyers, then?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Lewgar, looking down at the scarred wood of the bar. ‘No.’ He coughed. ‘I am Thomas Lewgar, of Cambridge.’ As soon as the words were out, he saw Marlowe’s eyes widen out the corner of his own. He lifted his chin. He would not creep around giving himself false names, not in London.

  His eyes glinting, the tapster said, ‘and I’m Hillyard. And pleased I am to meet you. A room then, is it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Marlowe.

  ‘And a fine one you shall have.’

  ***

  A fine room they did have – surprisingly so, for Southwark. After Marlowe had paid him, Hillyard had shown them to the room himself and, after unlocking the door, given them a key, boasting that they would have no one on the floor below to trouble them and none on either side making a noise either. Then he had left them to their luxury: a heavy straw bed with a coffer at its foot; a linen-draped table; a table with an empty tin dish for a candle; and even a pair of hard, three-legged stools.

  ‘I suppose we shall be comfortable enough here,’ said Lewgar, closing the door. When he turned back into the room, Marlowe was across it, opening a wooden shutter. ‘What are you doing?’

  Marlowe didn’t answer directly. ‘Shall we hang a sign by the window, announcing our names and our lodging?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You seem eager to announce our arrival in the town.’ He wore a placid smile, but his eyes were cold. Lewgar’s spine stiffened and he scrambled for some objection. ‘I trust you will do better on the morrow. When we go and see dear Sir Francis.’

  Lewgar’s heart skipped a beat – stupidly, of course. Walsingham! he thought. But in almost the same instant, he knew whom Marlowe meant. The fellow had said repeatedly on the road that he intended to get what he could of the Sparrowhawk, its gold, and El Sol Dorado from the commander of the fleet’s own mouth. He had said it airily, as if the seagoing knight would welcome them. ‘Drake,’ he said.

  ‘Even he.’

  ‘Without a letter of invitation. With nothing.’

  Marlowe leant out the window, sniffed, and withdrew, pulling it closed with a soft thud. ‘Perhaps we might do better than that.’ He didn’t elaborate, but he did tap the side of his nose. It was a gesture Lewgar had come to detest. It suggested much but said nothing. He had the clear impression that Marlowe wished him to think, ‘there is a man who knows things and people – I’d better bow to him.’ It didn’t work.

  Lewgar carefully set his pack on the coffer at the bed’s foot, as Marlowe had already done, and moved to the bed. It was well dressed in linens. He patted it, and inhaled the clean, faintly herby smell that wafted up. ‘I am tired,’ he said. It was true. They had lodged the previous night at a tiny house in Woking, knowing that they had no hope of reaching London before dusk and gates and watchmen descended, and he had slept badly on the straw bed.

  ‘Sleep then, if you will.’ Marlowe sat down on a stool. ‘We are safe enough now. No harm yet befell a man safe in a good lodging house.’

  Lewgar kicked off his boots and lay down on the bed, still dressed. ‘Perhaps just for a moment,’ he said, closing his eyes. He opened one. ‘What do you intend?’

  ‘My dear Thomas – that is my business.’ Marlowe’s back was to him.

  To hell with you then. He lay back again, trying to shut out the diffuse cries and barks which made their way in from the streets, trying to hear instead the soft clicking of doors and low thuds of footsteps echoing in the halls of the college. He felt himself drifting, his mind unmooring, and something like sleep embraced him.

  It was ripped from him with a bang.

  Lewgar opened his eyes; his mouth was already open, his chin wet with drool. He cuffed this away and used the bed’s strings to bounce upwards. Marlowe was gone. He blinked stupidly, clearing his vision.

  The door.

  Marlowe had gone out.

  Licking his lips, Lewgar sprang up. From the light coming in through the finger-holes in the shutters, he judged it was still afternoon; he could have dozed only for half an hour, if that. He might, if he wished, ignore Marlowe’s disappearance and go back to sleep.

  The image of the man tapping his nose, smugly, rose in mind.

  Your business, is it?

  Quickly, he slid into his heavy riding boots, wiggling his chapped toes, and jammed his hat on his head. And then he retrieved the key from the table and strode out, locking the door behind him.

  Lewgar moved along the upper gallery which overlooked the innyard, keeping his head down. He descended the sagging wooden steps and then crossed it. Rather than taking the archway to the street, he went through the taproom’s back door, supposing that his errant companion might only have gone for a drink or a bowl of pottage.

  Inside was quieter than it had been when they’d arrived. A few older men were sitting at tables, their heads bent over tankards. He stared as he recognised two women standing near the pipe-player, their arms around each other’s waists. It was the pair from the street – the old bawds who had been fighting. Likely, he realised, they were confederates – veterans of street brawls who had engineered the whole thing looking to make a little money off gamblers. He looked away. The tapster, Hillyard, was hunched over the bar, leaning on his elbows, watching him. Lewgar gave him a nod and began moving around the tables.

  ‘Good day again,’ he said. ‘I … I appear to have lost my friend.’

  ‘Mr Lewgar, ain’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And your friend? I didn’t catch his name.’

  Lewgar’s eyes narrowed. ‘Did he pass this way?’

  Hillyard straightened, appearing to consider prying more information out. Lewgar couldn’t blame him. Surely a fellow deserved to know who it was he let lodge in his establishment. ‘Just this minute gone, sir.’ He jabbed a finger at the front door of the place.

  ‘And I thank you.’

  Lewgar slipped out of The Tabard. As the smell of churned muck and sewage rose to greet him, so too did the sight of dozens of people moving northwards: women with linked arms; boys and prentices in huddles; people of both sexes with laden trays protruding before them, suspended there by strings around their necks.

  He rose on tiptoes and his eyes roved over the rising tide of humanity, picking out coifs and caps and bare heads and –

  There!

  He spotted Marlowe farther up the street, his wide-brimmed hat bouncing along in the same direction as everyone else, though he didn’t seem to have merged into any particular group of wanderers.

  Lewgar stepped out of the porchway of The Tabard but clung to the front of the building, moving just a little more quickly than the shambling people. He got to within perhaps twenty feet of his oblivious companion when they were near the cathedral and then fell into step behind a pair of pedlars; their towering packs masked him well enough.

  As they approached the wide, open street before London Bridge he peeped around.

  Yes, Marlowe was still walking on, the back of his jerkin visible. He was moving quite contentedly, tossing up a sugared orange with one hand and catching it with the other every minute or so.

  Where is he going? What is this?

  Lewgar’s answer came in the brash voices of the pedlars before him.

  ‘Looking forward, ay. To lightening this load.’

  ‘Ay, looks like becoming a crowd right enough.’

  ‘Heh. Long as they ain’t too much looking at them players to buy.’

  ‘Nah, nah. Are they ever?’

  They continued blabbering, but Lewgar stopped listening. Players. Marlowe was evidently drifting with the crowd towards a playhouse. In the last few years, the things had sprung up outside of the city proper. Old innyards still hosted players inside London, and there were enclosed and adapted innyards, but he heard of the new buildings set beyond the city authorities: of the unimaginatively titled The Theatre and the ot
her one, whose name he couldn’t recall having heard.

  He considered breaking free of the body of playgoers and returning to the inn. He had no interest in what a gaggle of vagabond players chose to perform in the midst of some vile, low place. They proclaimed themselves arbiters of morality, but sensible men knew they were anything but. Queen Elizabeth, it was said, only patronised a troupe of players because her courtiers had formed their own, and her Majesty must not be outdone by strutting peacocks.

  Yet, as he turned, he saw that escape would be impossible. The sea of people was washing onwards – more joined from the hard-packed jumble of shops, houses, and galleries on the bridge itself.

  Besides, he thought, his legs propelling him onwards, perhaps the fellow had arranged to meet his secret conspirators – or fellow intelligencers – at the place. He must have to write some report and provide it, or even some oral testimony as to what had been accomplished.

  On the wings of the thought came another. It had been said, some years ago – he couldn’t remember by whom – that Sir Francis Walsingham had chosen the Queen’s players. Why? Perhaps … perhaps … because the wandering actors went from town to town in their travelling seasons. Were the picked players a troupe of listening, watching spies? It was possible. His blood, stupidly he knew, thrilled at the thought. This was a world apart from the cloistered life of the university, distasteful or not.

  On the swelling mass went. It grew noisier. Whoops and cheers and howls issued from it. Some fellows who joined brought their tabors and pipes. From windows and projecting galleries overhead, people hung out, shouting, ‘what plays today?’ and ‘who plays today?’ The answering cry was ‘Tarleton at The Curtain!’; ‘Our good Tarleton!’