‘No. No, no. It’s Marlowe – Christopher Marlowe. He’s – he invited me to – to see his work. I own I – I never liked the fellow. I thought him shiftless. About his work at the college, I mean. And so I hoped to … to find out the truth of his creeping from Cambridge. And so I fell into it.’
‘As I’ve fallen into it,’ she said.
Lewgar grinned. ‘Right. Mr Marlowe has that way about him. Like a damned lodestone. He lures you in and bids you follow him. And you do. And before you know it, you’re – you’re up to your neck in strange proceedings.’
‘He’s not a good friend to you?’
‘He’s scarce a friend at all. I …’ Lewgar trailed off. He had no idea where the sentence might go. He didn’t consider Marlowe a friend – he didn’t entirely trust the man’s motives, and he certainly didn’t like his habits. Yet … well, they had been through some fairly odd happenings together, and certainly dangers – all of them Marlowe’s fault. It would be a cold man who didn’t feel a little kinship after that. Yes, he thought, that was it. Marlowe had become less a friend than akin to a grudging family member: an embarrassing, reckless family member, to whom ties nevertheless bound one.
‘I think,’ she said, giving him an odd, intense look, ‘that you are … uh … drawn to serving the turn of hazardous men.’
‘I do not serve Marlowe! And I – I –’ But it was true enough. He had been drawn by talk of hazard, of risk, as a curious, venturesome child might, his cowardly head turned by a bolder playmate who might take the blame if mischance fell out. He was still arranging his thoughts when he noticed that Cecily’s expression had changed from its placid neutrality. She was staring over the rim of her mug, a little moustache of foam bubbling on her upper lip.
‘Speak of the devil,’ she said.
Lewgar followed her gaze. At first, he thought she was maundering. And then he laughed, sending out a shower of his own foamy spittle.
Like Lewgar himself, Marlowe had undergone a transformation. His great cloud of auburn hair was gone – not just cropped but shaved bald as a fish’s belly. His beard, too, and his moustaches, were clean gone. Under his new hat – a ludicrous fashionable thimble – he looked like a twelve-year-old boy dressed up in his father’s clothes. Or, thought Lewgar, less charitably, like a stunted little Eunuch.
Marlowe recognised Cecily first, and raised a hand as he shifted between the tables towards the bar. He gave a cockeyed grin to Lewgar. ‘You look well, Thomas,’ he said. Lewgar fought the urge to laugh. It seemed odd – mad – hearing the fellow’s voice come out of the shaved little creature he’d become. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘I am quite changed in appearance. And a good thing too. I am a little late in coming because I returned to Southwark and took back our horses. From The Tabard.’
‘You went back there?’ asked Cecily. Lewgar felt a little stab of jealousy; she looked more impressed than horrified by his recklessness.
‘I did. The beasts are tethered outside.’ He took a breath. ‘Hillyard’s dead.’
‘What?’ asked Cecily and Lewgar as one.
Marlowe held up his palms. ‘It is the news in Southwark. Eclipsing even us. Or rather absorbing us. Mr Hillyard of The Tabard had his throat cut in his own tavern this morning. The Southwark folk, naturally, think the foul deed – the second foul deed in that place – the work of the two pairs of hands which broke out of The White Lion gaol. I suggest we get out of London tonight. Even fools like Marris and those constables will have the wit to set men to watch at the city gates. Though I think they’ll believe us long flown now.’
‘Out of London,’ echoed Lewgar, his voice trailing away.
‘I see you are still here, dear lady.’
Cecily half-turned, setting down her mug. ‘Yes. Yes, there was trouble about going north. We thought all men’s carts – that weren’t loaded with fish – were going west.’
‘With Sir Francis Drake,’ said Lewgar. ‘He is off, I think, back home. Back to Plymouth.’
Marlowe rubbed at his smooth chin. With the trace of whiskers gone, it looked very soft and round, like a baby’s fist. ‘Ah. Well. Tres fasciunt collegium, heh? We three shall go our way.’ The lightness left his voice. ‘And the docks – did you have any luck?’
‘Yes,’ said Lewgar. ‘We found talk of a sailor. A ghost of the Sparrowhawk, in fact.’
Marlowe’s eyebrows – even these had been plucked to quill scratches – drew together. ‘Tell me.’
Lewgar did, laying out all that they had done – and all that had happened to them in the doing of it – as clearly as a college tutor might recite the Iliad. Only occasionally did he stop to sip at his beer. ‘And thus,’ he concluded, ‘we elected to discover you.’
Marlowe had listened intently throughout. ‘Well, I see you had better fortune than I did. I was jeered away from the docks eastward.’ He lifted a rueful hand to his upper lip. ‘Laughed at as a boy and invited aboard to have my arse broken in.’
Lewgar drew in his cheeks and Cecily tutted. Both muttered their disgust.
‘Yet I wasn’t entirely without fortune.’ Marlowe gave one of his customary smiles.
‘Well?’ asked Lewgar.
‘I asked about the town, in taverns, alehouses … I asked for word of a man named Howdern.’
‘And?’
‘One name was returned. Howton. One Henry Howton, gentleman, of Thames Street, who has – and listen – been lately making a nuisance of himself in Southwark. At that fine house, The Three Brushes, across from The Tabard. Very demanding. Very wealthy. Has been a great friend of the mercers. Investing a long time in wines and spices. Offering credit.’ A filthy usurer, thought Lewgar. ‘Of an old Catholic family in the north. And he sets forth in the city often with a dark-haired clerk at his right hand.’
‘Howton!’ cried Lewgar, cursing Devonshire accents. Without thinking, he clutched at Cecily’s arm. It was stiff. Marlowe noticed the gesture, eyed its intimacy, and he pulled away, swallowing a gulp of beer. Possibilities boiled over in his mind. Constables, Sir Francis Walsingham – anyone – someone – must be told of this man, what he’d done.
Yet even as the thoughts rose, they crashed back down.
Still, they were two felons, on the run. Crying out against a wealthy gentleman would win them nothing but a whipping to soften them up for the gallows.
‘So,’ he said at length. ‘This Howton is the man behind the dogs who have been set upon us. This clerk of his – the creature who attacked us in Wembury. And, I think, today – in Houndsditch.’
‘So it would seem,’ said Marlowe.
‘The woman,’ said Cecily, her voice faraway. ‘Mistress Byrd…’
‘Yes?’ asked Marlowe, his voice gentle.
‘She was lying. She was hiding something.’
‘I thought the same,’ said Lewgar, more out of eagerness to support Cecily than anything else.
Marlowe reached out and wrenched Lewgar’s mug from him. He peered into it, his childish face a mask of dismay, before tossing back the dregs. ‘Houndsditch,’ he said. ‘Well, it is outside of the city itself. Let’s see if we can’t learn more of this strange lady and her … what did you say? Her brother? Come. Before the gates are closed.’
Together, the three left The Abbot’s Inn and went out into a city shivering under a livid, purplish sky. It was the colour, Lewgar thought, of something rotten.
21
‘Something’s wrong.’ Even as he said them, Lewgar knew the words were superfluous. The little lane which ran down past the entrance to the Byrd house was deep in shadow. Standing out in that shadow was a great slab of blackness. The door was open. No light spilled from within. He, Cecily, and Marlowe were all huddled, all shivering, unsure whether to proceed down to the door or return to the street.
Suddenly, from the broken window above, came a low, keening wail.
Ghosts! The thought was utterly unbidden, unwanted, and Lewgar pushed it away.
‘Mistress Byrd,’ said Cecily. Pushing p
ast the two men, she moved towards the doorway.
‘Be careful,’ hissed Lewgar, hurrying after her, his back bent. ‘Have a care!’ She didn’t respond but disappeared into the darkness. Lewgar followed, Marlowe at his back.
The parlour was unlit. It took a while for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. When they did, he saw the source of the wailing. On the floor, on her knees, was the humped silhouette of Mistress Byrd. Already, Cecily was bending to her. Both women were thus positioned directly over the dark outline of a body.
Lewgar felt Marlowe move behind him. His little form slid to the side, over the to the grate. There was a flicker of light. It died, before catching again, and suddenly the room blossomed to life. Blinking, seeing the strange outlines and shapes of the women and the body when he did, Lewgar folded his arms over his chest.
On the floor, the Widow Byrd seemed utterly unaware of the intrusion, heedless of Cecily trying to hug and comfort her. The body on the floor was male, stout, about Mistress Byrd’s age, or a little older. It was her brother: Arthur, she’d called him. Blood had pooled around him, from what looked like a wound to his heart. Again, the woman’s cry split the chill air of the room.
Marlowe turned away from the fire and went to her. The old woman ignored him, continued ignoring Cecily, and bent low over the body.
‘Please, mistress,’ said Marlowe. ‘What has happened here? We are come to help you.’
She only moaned deeply in her throat – a guttural, inarticulate kind of grumble.
Lewgar stared, discomfort raising an itch down his back. For all that they meant well, he could see that their soft approach would not bring the woman to her senses. He stepped forward himself and stopped when the tips of his boots were nearly touching the dead man’s blood.
‘That man,’ he said, summoning strength into his voice, ‘was your husband, was he not?’
This, finally, made her head snap up. She looked at him without recognition. Her measured calm of earlier had gone, and yet she made a good effort to pull together her rehearsed speech. ‘My husband … died on … Sparrowhawk … was lost.’ She swallowed, closing her red-rimmed eyes. ‘Arthur.’ And again, she moaned.
‘I say,’ said Lewgar, ignoring the hurt look Cecily shot him, ‘that you have misled us, Mistress Byrd. That man was your husband, was he not?’
This time, her head lifted in anger. She seemed suddenly aware of the woman clutching her shoulders and she turned to Cecily, fury on her face, and shook her off. Looking again at Lewgar, she hissed, ‘you! You creatures, come again. You’re with them, are you? Come to make an end of me as you did him?’
‘No,’ said Marlowe. He bent again. ‘Mistress, we are not your enemies. Nor were we your husband’s. Rather, we … we would have helped him. Wicked men sought him, did they not? A wealthy gentleman. Called Howton.’
The name appeared to mean nothing to her. Instead, she grasped at the description. ‘Demons. Monsters.’ She looked down at the dead man and again bent her head. Her coif had come loose, and grey hair spilled over her face. She had earlier looked graceful, thought Lewgar; now she had turned witchlike. He had heard that grief turned some people mad, scattering their wits beyond return. ‘He saved me. He … he saved me.’
‘What happened?’ asked Marlowe, barely above a whisper.
‘They c-came. We saw them from the window. Two men.’ Her voice began to steady as she spoke, but still it came in broken, jagged sentences. ‘He told me. Roger…’ Not Arthur then, thought Lewgar without much triumph. ‘Told me to go upstairs and stay there. Not to come down. We thought. We thought … men come to ask questions. No woman with them. Looked … perhaps the Queen’s government. Said he’d be rid of them. To stay upstairs. I did. I did. Oh, why did I?’
‘Because he wished to protect you,’ said Cecily, her head bowed. ‘And he did.’
Lewgar turned. The folded carpet which served as a cushion on the mermaid-carved bench was still in place. He lifted it and stepped towards the fallen man. Gently, Cecily held Mistress Byrd back as he covered the body. ‘He saved me,’ she said weakly.
‘Yes he did,’ said Marlowe. ‘Yet if you wish justice, we must know what has happened here. Your husband was, I think, Roger Byrd.’
‘A mariner thought lost some years since,’ Lewgar added. ‘With the Sparrowhawk.’
The widow – now truly a widow – hissed at the name, catlike. ‘That accursed ship. That ship! Is this why they killed him? To know of it?’
‘Yes,’ said Lewgar, folding his arms again.
‘And we would know what these men sought from him. To discover where they’ve gone now,’ said Marlowe.
‘That damned ship! I knew it – I knew whether we shifted lodgings or not – I knew. One day there would be trouble.’ With the sight of her husband gone, she seemed to strengthen a little. She rose, unsteadily, to her feet. ‘Who are you?’ she asked, looking around at them. And then, as quickly, ‘no. No, don’t tell me. I don’t want any of you.’
‘Do you wish your husband’s murderers found?’ asked Lewgar. She met his gaze, her own soured now with dislike. He didn’t care. The woman was a fraud, a liar, as was her dead husband. ‘Then tell us the truth of the Sparrowhawk.’
‘I’m no mariner,’ she countered. ‘I … some years ago, my husband came back from his voyage aboard that ship.’
‘Sir Francis Drake’s voyage to the New World?’ asked Lewgar.
She shrugged, her head giving a jerk. ‘Yes. He … he was the shipwright. The carpenter.’ Tears threatened again and she blinked them away. ‘He told me then … we lived in Water Lane, where we courted. He told me that the ship’s men would be thought lost. But they weren’t, not all of them. He was proof enough of that. And that … that we might have to be apart for a time. But it would be worth it. Worth it, because we could be together again and richer for the spell apart. I … I didn’t mind. A mariner’s wife is used to being away from her husband. In truth I thought he’d be away longer than he was.
‘And so he went to live awhile with his friend. Another man of the Sparrowhawk. The purser, Thorpe. He came back to see me in Water Lane, once or twice. Gave me money to find us new lodgings. And we did. And then again.’ She fetched a deep, tired sigh. Lewgar supposed she had been crying in the dark for an hour or more. ‘And once I had secured us this place, he came back. Yet he said he mustn’t be known anymore as Roger Byrd. By then, the world knew the Sparrowhawk was lost with all hands. I didn’t mind. One name is as good as another.’
‘And so he became your brother, lodging with you,’ finished Cecily. She sounded a little awestruck. ‘And you lived here, like … like that.’
In a state of sin, thought Lewgar. He wasn’t exactly sure what sin it constituted, but it seemed wicked and untruthful enough.
‘Until now,’ she said. A sob burst out of her throat. She raised a hand to her lips. ‘Until now. I knew wickedness was in the stars. Since word came that that damned ship had been cast up, I knew it. Roger hasn’t gone out since, not even as my good brother. He’s stayed at home. He thought people might come. And when you did – a soft man and a woman,’ she said, making Lewgar bristle, ‘we thought ourselves well rid of you.’
‘And then these harder men came,’ said Marlowe. Throughout, he had stood by the fireplace, his hands clasped behind his back. His youthful face looked sad; it seemed to Lewgar as though this might be the first time he had ever seen the man without even a trace of a smile on his face.
‘He saved me. He protected me,’ said Mistress Byrd. She seemed to enjoy the words; they straightened her back; they gave her pride. ‘But it got him. The curse of that ship got him. I … over the years since, I said – there was a wicked business in that ship. Whatever it was he and his fellows had done … it invited ill fortune. It got him.’
‘Wicked men got him,’ said Cecily.
Ignoring this, Lewgar asked, ‘did he tell you what it was? That he and his fellows had done, I mean.’
Again, she gave him a hard, ev
en look. ‘No, sir. And I didn’t ask. I know only that his fellows – the men he was in the thing with – they have all died since. Every mariner on that ship lost, save for old Thorpe, the purser. He … Roger would go to visit him, once a year. And he’d come back with a little more money.’
Glances were exchanged between the three visitors. ‘This Thorpe, then is still living,’ said Lewgar. He thought, but didn’t add, that the old fellow might be the brains behind whatever criminality had been involved in the past, and almost certainly he was the treasurer.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know where?’
‘In Canterbury.’
‘Canterbury,’ repeated Lewgar. It made sense, for a mariner – it was on the road to that other great port, Dover. But the town struck him for another reason. It hit him. His eyes travelled to Marlowe, who was staring without expression. Canterbury, Lewgar felt sure, was his companion’s hometown. He thought better of mentioning it. Instead, he said, ‘when these men were here – these wicked creatures – did … did they learn this of your husband?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know.’
He didn’t press further. Almost certainly he would have told them, probably in the hope of being rid of them and protecting his wife. Likely he didn’t know what kind of monsters he was speaking with until the blade pierced his skin.
‘We will pursue these men,’ said Marlowe. ‘They will be given the Queen’s justice. And … you needn’t worry … we will say nothing of the – the unusual circumstances.’
Lewgar, mindful that she had called him a soft man, added, ‘we will make an end of these villains ourselves.’ It did not sound as impressive or convincing as he’d hoped. The old woman didn’t seem much interested either way. She had turned despondent, circling one arm around her waist and gnawing on her other fist.
‘Leave us awhile,’ said Cecily. ‘I would speak with Mistress Byrd. Help her … speak with her about what to do for the best. To have her … brother … put to rest.’
The two men nodded. Only belatedly did they each remember to remove their hats, and this as they stepped out into the lane.
The Queen's Gold: A Christopher Marlowe Spy Thriller Page 22