The Queen's Gold: A Christopher Marlowe Spy Thriller

by Steven Veerapen

  ‘No, sir. Said ’e’d know if I succeeded. And come ’ere if ’e there was one of yer left to … speak with.’

  ‘What is your name?’ asked Marlowe. He had rocked back and sat cross-legged, like a child. He was absently dancing the point of his knife on a floorboard, spinning it by the handle as though hoping to bore down into the room below.

  ‘Uh … Francis,’ said the prisoner.

  In unison, Marlowe and Lewgar rolled their eyes. Taking up the knife – ‘Francis’ continued to eye it warily – Marlowe hopped to his feet. ‘Well, friend Francis, I regret that we must bear your company a little longer. Or, rather, you must suffer us for a spell.’

  ‘’ow’s that, sir?’ His tone changed. ‘I’m sorry, sir, for what I done. Didn’t mean nothing by it.’ Inspiration seemed to strike. ‘’e said as you were bad men, wicked. It was a right Christian thing I thought to be doing. And I’m sorry to be so mistook, honest.’

  Marlowe tutted. ‘Ah, dear. Now, my friend, you lie. A thing I cannot abide. Pass me that ewer, will you?’ He had turned to Lewgar, who rose, lifting the thing and handing it to him. ‘Ah. Here we are.’ Bustling over to the table, he set down knife and ewer and, from the latter, he extracted the dripping rag-end of towel and squeezed the water from it. ‘Because you have a wicked tongue,’ he said, ‘we shall need to make sure it does not flap wildly when we leave you today.’ He crossed the room and, amidst the captive’s protests, he gagged him, knotting the wet rag tightly behind his head. ‘There,’ he said when he’d finished. ‘Now you shall not die of thirst.’

  Lewgar, impressed, folded his arms over his chest. ‘Nor shall you scream and cry and make a great fuss.’

  With the man thoroughly bound and gagged, Marlowe stood with his hands on his hips. Ignoring the stifled mmphs, he said, ‘this shall hold him. For a little while, at least. For time enough.’

  ‘Yes.’ An idea had formed Lewgar’s mind. ‘I might approach the Queen’s favourite. Myself. He might have learnt something from his savages, truly. Perhaps he has come to understand more of what treasures were carried out of the New World. You might bear this low creature company.’

  Marlowe gave him a smile before turning away, moving over to the coffer, and lifting the lid. ‘Oh? I had another thing in mind.’ He shut the lid with a thud, his arms laden with the clothes he had left. ‘And it is not going to hear a play read at The Curtain.’

  Lewgar froze, his mouth open.

  Marlowe knew he had been followed.

  Or he suspected.

  Whichever it was, a look of amusement crossed his face as he tossed his stuff onto the bed. Lewgar gave himself a little shake, and said, ‘but one of us must remain here. In case the one who sent this creature comes to see if their foul plan succeeded.’

  ‘Do not be a dolt.’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘He will not come.’

  Lewgar crossed his arms. ‘And why is that?’

  ‘Use your brain. He knew we lodged here. Told our friend here of it. It follows, I think, that he has been watching us. Perhaps he was amongst the crowd watching us as we battled. Perhaps,’ he said, giving another shrug, ‘he is watching us right now. Or one of his company.’

  Lewgar spun on the spot, his jaw clenching. ‘But – but–’

  ‘But me no buts. Let him watch, he and whoever works with him. This Howdern. Let them all do as they wish. They must fear what we might know. Or what we might discover.’

  ‘Cannot – cannot we get some protection. From…’ He considered naming Walsingham but thought better of it in front of the prisoner. He’d noticed that Marlowe had never used his name as they’d questioned him. ‘From your master.’

  ‘Evidently,’ said Marlowe, ‘we need no protection. You have proven yourself, my friend, an abler man that I would have thought. I am proud of you.’

  Lewgar scowled, but there was no trace of mockery on Marlowe’s face. ‘Well, if not to Raleigh, what do you intend to do whilst this brute lies – lies festering here?’

  ‘I told you. I find myself drawn not to the Sparrowhawk and its strange treasures – not for the moment. But to its dead. I intend to see if we might have traffic with those poor, dead sailors. It is a brave man who hazards conversation with the wakeful dead. Come follow me, if you will.’

  13

  Disputing with Christopher Marlowe when his boiling mind was set on something was a bootless endeavour. Still, Lewgar had tried. Dressed and washed, their prisoner trussed up and abandoned in their lodging, they had taken the horses from the stable at The Tabard and taken the road west, following the curves of the river. Through the scattered fields and fine houses of Lambeth, Lewgar had protested that there was no purgatory – a foolish papist superstition – and so no ghosts: only angels and demons, the latter likely to guise themselves in dead men’s shapes. Certainly, there were no safe means of speaking with them.

  Pausing to rest the horses at a well in Battersea, he had redoubled his efforts. Anyone seeking traffic with the dead was opening the door to devilry. Only skilled men might even have a hope of doing it safely. To this, Marlowe had smilingly pointed out that Seneca had written often enough of ghosts in his great tragedies: they were pursuers of bloody vengeance against those who had wronged them in life. Who could be more in need of vengeance than mariners who had been lost at sea by hands and means unknown? The dead, Lewgar insisted, had no interest in the living and the living could do nothing for the dead. God had strictly forbidden that man should seek to learn anything from the dead, for He alone should be our divine schoolmaster. Necromancy was proscribed in practice if not in law.

  As they trotted on through Wandsworth, he had tried a more logical tack. He had never seen a ghost. Marlowe had never seen a ghost. Thus it followed that there were no ghosts. Ah, Marlowe countered, turning in his saddle, but they had not seen the New World either and neither of them doubted its existence. And besides, he had heard tell of a dead baker somewhere in the north, whose ghost had returned amid much ado, still shrouded in his winding sheet and looking paler and sadder than he had in life. When the people of the village broke down the doors of his house, they found him helping his family knead dough in the kitchen block at the rear and set upon him. So it was said, he crumbled into something very black and rotten before their eyes.

  Lewgar had no answer to this.

  He had heard tales of ghosts – all men had – and rolled his eyes. He could not discount them, not as much as he would like, for doubtless people did see strange shapes and odd creatures and wraiths. But such people were either misled, or mad, or given to grief and melancholy, and the things they saw had some more or less reasonable explanation, whether born of brainsickness, symbols of the divine, or signs of the demonic. Each case would have its own root cause.

  Finally, he retreated to the argument he had used when Marlowe had first announced his intention to ride to Mortlake: the man who kept his house there, the Queen’s great conjuror and astrologist, had departed England. John Dee, the great mind who had dabbled in everything from navigation to the recording of legends to the art of numbers to necromancy to the recovery of Eden’s own ancient language was even now on the continent. He could not help them, even had he the powers and the tools required to do so.

  They were passing through Putney as he finished rehearsing this. Again, Marlowe turned. Again, he said, ‘it is not the man we need.’

  ‘Then what?’ They had slowed again. The sun was high overhead, though it gave scant warmth. On either side of them, pleasant timbered houses faced the street. Women in broad-brimmed hats tended their gardens, ignoring the two passing riders. ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve heard,’ said Marlowe, ‘I know – that the old man left behind him his great library. His tools. And I’ve heard, too, that cunning men have stepped into his shoes. They’ve broken down the doors of Mortlake and–’

  ‘Then they’re thieves!’

  ‘They have broken down the doors of Mortlake and stolen the old man’s books.
Thieves, ay. But even a thief with eyes to read and a tongue to speak can work the mysteries of a book, plain written.’ He gave his reins a shake and trotted on, sending up a light fog of dust.

  After a moment, Lewgar followed.

  He did not doubt that the ability to conjure up the dead existed – or to conjure up something. But he very much doubted that such powers were safe in the hands of the uninitiated, or even in the hands of university men who had made no great study of them. And certainly not in the hands of clod-brained thieves who fancied themselves sorcerers just because they’d laid hands on some purloined mystical books.

  The area of Mortlake was well-heeled. Houses, most with red-tile roofs and fresh faces, were spaced widely apart. Between them, Lewgar could see orchards and herb gardens spreading off into the distance. ‘Good morrow,’ Marlowe called down as they passed an older man in a tall, rounded hat. He drew his horse to a stop and slid from the saddle. Lewgar did the same. The old man, for his part, stepped forward politely to offer them an arm.

  ‘We seek John Dee’s house. He was lately of this town.’

  The old fellow blanched. His nostrils flared and he stepped back from them, tilting back his head as far as the hat would allow. ‘You don’t seem … it’s … who are you?’

  ‘Two men of Cam–’

  ‘Queen’s men,’ said Marlowe, touching his hat. Lewgar felt a blush creep up his neck. Some lies were as dangerous as they were outrageous. His companion, it seemed, simply did not care.

  The man’s manner changed immediately. ‘Oh. Oh. Queen’s…’ He removed his own hat, holding it in a humped fist. ‘Dee. Dee’s house.’ He jerked his head to the right. ‘That way, gentlemen. And riverward. Red brick house.’ He looked at the ground. ‘And have a care.’

  ‘How do you mean, sir?’ asked Lewgar. He took hold of the horse’s reins, just for something to do. The leather fit neatly into the groove it had made from the morning’s ride.

  ‘Rotten place. Cursed. Rotten folks come and go. Have taken up lodging. Against the force of law, I’ll be bound.’ He leant forward at his hips. ‘It’s whispered about the town that creatures gather there. Commit outrages. Against God,’ he added, with meaning. ‘None will chase them. Good folk stay away from the house.’ His colour rose. ‘No offence meant to your good selves, nor her Majesty neither, of course.’

  Marlowe made a show of looking up the street, one hand on his hip. ‘We are commissioned,’ he said, ‘to clear this house of its illegal occupants. And to make it sure against further incursions and … outrages.’

  ‘Ah. Well then. That’s good, a good thing. I wish you fair fortune.’ He gave a firm, downward nod. ‘That way, as I said.’

  ‘And we thank you,’ said Lewgar. With a look to Marlowe, he began leading their way up the street, leaving the old man and his unpleasant warning behind.

  Thereafter, they had little problem finding the house. It was, as they’d been told, a red-brick cluster of buildings, with a crumbling gatehouse entering into a thriving, wild little square of garden. The main block lay at the rear, dyed red in the blazing sun; its front must have been almost flush with the Thames. Neglect hung heavy in the air. Most of the doors of the buildings – the main house and likely a kitchen, a stillroom, a privy, a buttery – were gone. Rusted hinges hung from swollen lintels. Gone too were the windows. Probably they had been of glass, which had been stripped away for use elsewhere.

  As they stood looking around the garden, Lewgar’s gaze fell on a low stone wall, one side broken in a shower of stone. He led his horse to it and tethered it. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it seems a wasted journey. The place is barren.’

  ‘Is it?’

  Lewgar looked up. ‘What?’

  ‘I saw a movement. Someone is watching us.’ Marlowe pointed up towards the main block. Its irregular windows were all denuded. He tethered his own horse, humming cheerfully to himself. ‘Let us not keep our new friend waiting.’

  Every sinew in Lewgar’s body froze, refusing to go further. It was only a clap on his back that set him moving. Marlowe, grinning, circled ahead of him and moved towards the shallow steps that led up into the doorless entryway of the main house. He disappeared inside, as Lewgar was still stalking through the unkempt, ankle-length grass.

  The ground floor of the house was strewn with rubbish: empty nut and oyster shells, rotting apple cores and the blackened, crinkled skin of oranges. Some of the trash had gathered in piles against the soot- and dampness-stained walls. Other piles had collected in pits in the floor made by stolen floorboards. There was no furniture left, no dressings. The room itself was open – it would, in better days, have been a good entrance hall, a place for making good cheer. Lewgar fought to recall when it was Dee had been said to have left England. It had been over a year at least, and with some fanfare and whispers about what a man of learning might seek to find on the continent. Since his departure, no one had returned from abroad with news of any great discoveries.

  Lewgar thudded carefully through the room, his jaw clenched, wishing he had a pomander. The air reeked – of rot, of dampness, but of something else: a low, tangy undercurrent of some spice or other.

  Another doorway was cut into the wall. It led farther into the house; sunlight streamed in from what he assumed must be windows and doors facing the river. He stepped towards it, his heart in his throat.

  ‘Ahh!’ He fell back, colliding with Marlowe.

  ‘What!?’

  Lewgar nearly laughed. A cat – a tabby – had shot out of the doorway. It stood before them, its tail curved upwards, brush-like and bushy. It gave one long hiss before darting back through the doorway. ‘Just a cat,’ he said. ‘Little pest.’

  Marlowe stepped around him and went through the doorway first. Following, Lewgar saw that it did indeed lead to a room at the front of the house. This one was equally bare – a former parlour, probably, with a fireplace choked with filth. In the corner, a low arch led to a staircase.

  The two men saw it at the same time.

  About three steps up, a window behind him, stood a man in a brown jerkin and breeches, one hand braced against the plaster wall.

  Rotten folks come and go, Lewgar thought: they must have taken up lodging.

  His hand wandered to the dagger at his hip, the one he’d bought before they’d left Southwark that morning. Marlowe, he noticed did the same. Both men stepped forward. The cat had skittered up to hide behind the stranger.

  ‘Good morrow, my friend,’ said Marlowe. ‘Who are you?’

  The fellow stepped down. He moved weakly; he was painfully scrawny. As he reached the ground floor, Lewgar got a good look. He seemed to be in his middle fifties, possibly older. On his head was a four-cornered scholar’s hat, faded grey, with ear flaps. It had seen better days. His face was flinty, with hollows beneath the cheekbones and dark circles under the eyes. He gave a retching cough. He too had seen better days. He was a world away from the sleek, well-fed old man who had condemned John Dee’s house on the street outside.

  ‘Who goes there?’ he asked. His gravelly voice reminded Lewgar a little of Drake’s, though the accent was pure London.

  ‘We are two gentlemen come to seek the master – the late master of this house – his mysteries,’ said Marlowe. Lewgar noted, with a little satisfaction, that his companion sounded a little unsure of himself. His reserves of cheerful confidence, hitherto inexhaustible, had been threatened by the strange place and its strange occupant.

  ‘Ye come,’ said the old man, ‘seeking mysteries.’

  ‘I understand we are not the first,’ said Lewgar, pleased at the calm in his own voice.

  ‘No. No. Men come. Ay, they do. To seek wonders under the light of the paschal moon. Seeking answers of the spirits. Seeking knowledge of lost loves and buried treasures.’

  ‘And you tell them? A likely thing.’ Lewgar snorted. ‘Why, if you could obtain such secret knowledge – of treasures – should you be living in another man’s wrecked house? Should you not seek these
treasures yourself? Very likely!’

  ‘If ye mean to make trouble on me, ye might turn and go.’

  After shooting him an angry look, Marlowe looked at the man. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  The old man looked up. His ear, Lewgar noticed, had been pierced and had healed badly, giving a scarred look. ‘M’name’s Mercator.’

  Lewgar scoffed. The little puff of air was instinctive. Marlowe turned, warning on his face this time. He ignored it. ‘Mercator!’ The name was familiar enough. Gerardus Mercator was a great Flemish cosmographer. Evidently, this poor creature had heard the name, perhaps even read it if he had his letters, somewhere in the house and adopted it, the better to gull people who might come to the house hoping a little of its former master’s genius clung to the walls. As he and Marlowe had, he thought. The fellow was an old charlatan, a coney catcher.

  ‘Good friend Mercator,’ said Marlowe, apparently happy to play along with the ridiculous fellow. ‘We come in search of books that might let us speak with the dead.’

  Hearing the words spoken aloud made Lewgar quiver. Blasphemy and foolery seemed to blur together into something even more monstrous.

  The man – Mercator – remained in the low archway, studying them. ‘A lost wife, is it? A child gone over?’

  ‘No,’ said Marlowe. ‘Tell me, is the thing truly possible? To learn what has become of the dead?’

  ‘Ay, ay. All is possible.’ A change seemed to bring a little life into him. It reminded Lewgar of the way his fellow students might work themselves up into playing a part in the interludes that were staged at Cambridge during the Christmas revels. Clapping his gnarled hands together and giving a pained-looking smile, Mercator said, ‘well, then, come up. Old Mercator, he’ll help ye do as ye please.’ He turned and began mounting the stairs. The cat, startled, raced ahead of him; he cursed as it paused to scratch at a step and almost tripped him up.

  ‘You cannot believe this – this charlatan has any pow–’ began Lewgar. But Marlowe was already stepping through the archway.