A Tip for the Hangman

by Allison Epstein

  “Only cowards close their eyes at the last stroke,” he said. “You’re many things, Marlowe, but not a coward.” He waited, severe as iron, blocking Kit’s retreat.

  Better a coward than a murderer. But then, Kit was one of those already.

  He turned away from the spymaster and opened the door.

  The hall was full. Well-dressed and impatient noblemen crowded the makeshift scaffold at the head of the room. No one looked at Kit. He looked only at the scaffold. Two feet high, twelve feet broad, draped with black. The priest, hands folded as if this were any Sunday mass. The executioner, standing beside the wooden block, with its notch for the neck. Kit’s breath roared in his ears.

  The door opened again.

  Mary did not look at anyone. Certainly not at Kit. A pale specter dressed in black, her eyes hollow, her bearing proud. She was attended by one of her ladies, likewise clad in mourning.

  Mary is a traitor, Kit told himself. She deserves this.

  When Mary reached the scaffold, she stopped a foot from the platform. Paused, but unwavering. The woman took Mary’s hand and gripped it tight. Differences in rank collapsed in the hour of death.

  The priest, looming above Mary on the scaffold, spoke in a piping, reedy voice. “Madam, confess your sins and repent. Accept God’s forgiveness for your—”

  “Save your breath,” Mary said. The priest blinked, startled. Likely no one had ever interrupted him before. No one had ever been eager for him to finish. “Your faith has nothing to do with me, and mine has nothing to do with you. I shall die a Catholic, whatever you say.”

  With a nod at her maid, she raised her arms. The woman helped Mary remove the black shell of her gown. Beneath, Mary wore a scarlet chemise, which flashed through the room like flayed skin.

  “Thank you,” Mary said. She began to turn, toward the scaffold, but then turned back. “Send word to my son. Tell him I send my love, and to be strong in his faith.”

  “Yes, my lady,” the woman said, curtsying.

  As if the maid could send word to Scotland. As if she could have said no.

  The climb. Only three steps. Mary started to speak at the top of the third.

  “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women…”

  Kit felt his vision narrow. Beside him, Walsingham never turned away from the scaffold as Mary knelt before the block. She clasped a rosary to her chest, bone-white against blood-red. Kit had never heard a woman pray so loudly.

  “And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners…”

  “Madam, I implore you,” began the priest.

  “Now, and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

  Mary picked up the thread of another prayer immediately, loud as the first. The executioner stood behind her, waiting. Could they kill a woman in the middle of prayer? Even a Catholic prayer? The room hummed. No one seemed to know.

  “In thee, O Lord, have I hoped. Let me not be confounded, and deliver me in thy justice.”

  Kit heard her voice catch as the executioner’s footsteps approached, but the prayer would not die. Kit couldn’t see Walsingham beside him. He could see nothing but the red-clad figure kneeling on the scaffold, praying to the rafters, as the axe neared.

  The blade arced upward and hung a moment there, suspended. Mary spread her arms, neck resting on the block. The rosary still dangled from her right hand.

  “Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my—”

  The axe fell.

  Mary screamed.

  Kit’s courage shattered like a thousand panes of stained glass.

  The crunch of steel striking bone.

  A pause, as the axe was wrenched from Mary’s neck. Kit saw her twitch. He saw her lips move, as if she would continue to pray.

  The axe fell again.

  The silence was louder than the scream.

  The axe fell a third time.

  Mary’s rosary landed against the scaffold. The skittering ivory sounded like a gold coin dropped on a desk.

  The hum in Kit’s ears was deafening. He couldn’t concentrate on the room. It kept slipping out of focus, blood-slick around the edges. He was breathing too fast. There wasn’t enough air.

  “Marlowe,” he heard Walsingham say. “Marlowe, breathe. Look at me.”

  The weight of a hand on his shoulder. Kit pushed it off and bolted.

  It seemed impossible his legs could carry him so fast, or so far. With every step, around every corner, the bloodied wreck of Mary Stuart, hanging like a scrim before his eyes. He shouldered open the door and burst into the snow-blasted courtyard. A shallow breath of bitter cold knifed through him. More air, all the air in the world, and it still wasn’t enough. Ghosts here, too. Even pure white snow could not hide so much blood.

  Kit sank to a crouch, head in his hands, and screamed, screamed until something between his ribs shattered, something that could not be put back together.

  Twenty-Four

  The execution’s aftermath passed in a gray haze. It took Kit from Northampton to London, and then to Whitehall’s back rooms, where terse politicians debated the state of the Scots and the Spanish. Everyone knew Mary’s death would not go unavenged, though no one took the threat more seriously than Cecil. He raged at the Council, urging preemptive action: naval escalation, scouting parties into Scotland, domestic raids. His reaction was zealous and bloody, but not irrational. The English navy couldn’t fend off the Spanish Armada without fortifications. And with hives of English Catholics hungry for vengeance, Cecil feared attack from land and sea. From the righteous pitch of his belligerence, it was hard to remember that England had, in fact, struck first.

  It was hard to remember they’d won.

  Kit heard all this, but vaguely. The threat of insurrection paled against the memory of the axe, that scream. He couldn’t keep down food, slept little. When he did, the dreams woke him gasping for breath more nights than not. He felt transparent, brittle, as if too-sharp thought would snap him.

  His first day back in London, Lord Burghley shook his hand in congratulation—an action that would have caused John Marlowe, had he known, to die of shock. But no one else in Whitehall seemed even to see Kit. The Council treated him just as the tribunal had in Northampton: a penniless scribe to take dictation and be silent. Even Walsingham became colder. Some divine edict seemed to forbid him to look at Kit directly, or spend a moment longer than necessary in his company. He left Council sessions the moment Burghley stopped speaking, vanishing into the recesses of the palace, saying nothing.

  Kit should have been stronger, so that something so trivial wouldn’t have troubled him. He should have been like Sir Francis, like Gregory, like Poley. Detached. Cold as steel and as hard to damage. So that nothing frightened him or kept him awake with regret because no one had a hold on him. But as much as he’d learned in recent months, he still hadn’t mastered that trick.

  In this time of crisis, the Privy Council met twice daily, near daybreak and just after sunset. The time between sessions Kit had to himself, for better or for worse. The councilors filled the interim with business: ambassadors to flatter, letters to write, vast estates to manage by proxy. Kit had nothing but his own mind and the ghosts that occupied it, which proved abysmal company. He’d found a small sanctuary in which to kill the long hours: a window seat in an out-of-the-way corridor, safe from the politics swirling through the palace. A quiet corner where he could write, or try to.

  He’d swiped a leather-bound ledger from one of the palace’s lesser-used studies—with what he’d sacrificed for the crown, this felt like reparations, not theft. Intended for bookkeeping, the grid across the pages slashed his line in blatant disregard for the poetic foot. But that didn’t matter. Nothing he’d composed since Mary’s arrest had been worth the ink it took to write. He looked down at his latest
line, the product of a good half hour, and scowled. Thirteen syllables, God help him. Surely he hadn’t come within spitting distance of a master’s degree from Cambridge only to forget how to count to ten.

  “Marlowe. A word?”

  Kit turned from the page. Walsingham stood ten feet away, arms folded across his black linen doublet. Typical that after treating Kit like a ghost for two weeks, he’d haunt the only place Kit tried to find peace.

  “Sir,” he said, closing the book. The ink would smear, but that was only a tragedy when it ruined something worth reading. He nearly asked how Walsingham had found him, but then, the queen’s spymaster always knew where his agents were.

  Walsingham nodded toward an open door, half revealing a sparse parlor with two couches, a low credenza, and little else. Kit followed, sitting opposite him. The scene had the unpleasant feeling of a trial. He clasped his hands between his knees and tried not to look guilty.

  “Now that your initial commission has been fulfilled,” Walsingham said, without a breath of preamble, “I’d like to politely suggest that you remain here, in London. Having you nearby would be of great use to me, depending on how the issue of the Armada resolves itself.”

  Resolves itself. A curious choice of words for a foreign force that might still obliterate the country Kit called home. And the phrase of great use had an echo to it that Kit didn’t like. He was hesitant to speak his mind with the stakes so high, but Walsingham had asked for this conversation. It was worth trying now, if ever.

  “I understand, sir,” Kit said. “It’s only that…”

  “It’s what?” Walsingham prompted.

  Kit sighed. “It’s not that I’m not grateful for what you’ve given me, sir,” he said. “But I worked five years toward a degree, and now I’ve had to throw that away. Without that, I…well. I don’t have many prospects without it, and I don’t expect I can afford to stay here long.”

  It sounded as petty as he’d feared. Between saving the life of the queen and sitting a handful of master’s-level examinations, only a fool would have voiced regret at not having chosen the latter. But it was true, what he’d said. A degree meant London, meant money, meant proving to the pack of them that he could be more than they’d imagined. The idea of it had sustained him through nights listening to his father shout at the constable in the street below, days enduring the sneers of Cambridge’s better-off pupils. If Kit was to spend the rest of his life haunted by Mary Stuart’s final scream, at least he might have had something to show for it.

  Walsingham smiled at this, as Kit had half expected him to. But he’d anticipated cruel mockery, and what he received was not that. There was no motive behind this smile. “I meant to tell you,” Walsingham said. “I’ve dealt with that.”

  Kit started. “Excuse me?”

  “I had a word with Lord Burghley. He recommended the Cambridge fellows consider your…additional employment a sort of academic equivalency. They’ve already granted your degree. You may call yourself Christopher Marlowe, master of arts, until your voice gives out.”

  He must have misheard. Sir Francis Walsingham, royal secretary to the queen, the man with the nation’s safety resting on his back, pulling strings to ensure that the scholarship of a shoemaker’s son didn’t go to waste. Because of Walsingham, Kit would never have to endure the jeers of men like Nick Skeres, men like his father, about how ill-suited he’d been for a university education. Because of Walsingham, Kit would be somebody—in this role and out of it.

  “Thank you, sir,” he said quietly.

  “Lord Burghley was perfectly willing,” Walsingham said. “He spoke quite favorably of you that first evening he met you. Naturally, I told him your acquaintance was like a strong Scotch whiskey.”

  Kit frowned. “Sir?”

  “One only needs a little.”

  Kit laughed, startled into it. He couldn’t recall Walsingham ever doing anything as frivolous as joking. Victory would do strange things to a man. Or threat of defeat. Or simply knowing that whatever nightmares haunted his sleep, at least one man, one other in a city of thousands, might share them.

  Perhaps Walsingham even liked him. Mad as the idea seemed.

  “You’re all right, Marlowe?” Walsingham said, somewhat gruffly. “After it all?”

  Kit pressed his lips together. If Walsingham had to ask, he must not have hidden his strain as well as he’d hoped. Though the thought of concealing anything from the spymaster was ridiculous, least of all this feeling.

  “When does it get easier?” Kit said quietly.

  A slight softness came to Walsingham’s stone eyes. That sympathy frightened Kit to his bones. “It doesn’t,” Walsingham said. “But you learn to bear it.”

  He’d known that before he asked. What they’d done, what they’d seen—it wasn’t the sort of memory that could ever be dismissed. But it was different hearing Walsingham admit it. Walsingham, who had never shown Kit fear even for a moment.

  “The Armada, then,” Walsingham said. “Did Stuart ever speak of it?”

  Kit cleared his throat, shaking himself back into the present. If he had no choice, he would learn to bear it, and do what was needed of him in the meantime. “Occasionally. Not as much as we’d hope.”

  They spoke for an hour, reviewing Kit’s report, sketching possible threats and analyzing potential dangers from the king of Spain. Perhaps Walsingham had the right of it after all. It was a relief, to think of nothing but the work, traitorous plots spinning out like Ariadne’s thread.

  The bells outside tolled the hour, jarring Kit’s nerves. The break in Walsingham’s dark mood had eased Kit’s anxiety, not cured it. As if cued by the time, Walsingham glanced at the window, though the curtains were drawn. When he turned to Kit—impossible though it seemed—his eyes were smiling.

  “Marlowe, you’re dismissed,” Walsingham said. “I expect the Council to complete its business by the end of this week, at which point you’ll be free to go. But I’ll expect you at this evening’s session.”

  “I burn with anticipation, sir,” Kit said, earning himself an exasperated sigh from the spymaster. He didn’t bow, but then Walsingham knew better than to expect that.

  Kit ducked into the corridor. It was late afternoon, but the days had begun to lengthen again, and the last dregs of sunlight still streamed through Whitehall’s leaded windows. Perhaps he might be able to write something worthwhile today after all. In the light of the dying afternoon, he thought he could hear the poetic line again in the soft footsteps down the corridor, quick iambs, one-two, one-two.

  He looked up and saw something that couldn’t possibly be real.

  A man had stopped at the far end of the corridor, catching sight of Kit in return. A handsome man of medium height, broad shouldered and blond, wearing a forest-green linen shirt and tan breeches Kit remembered as well as if they were his own. When the faint smile broke across the man’s face, it felt like home.

  It was impossible that he should be here. It was equally impossible to deny that he was.

  It was a stupid risk, with Walsingham on the other side of the door and the entire Privy Council mere steps away, but Kit had been taking risks for so long that he felt entitled to a frivolous one. He took the corridor at a run and threw his arms around Tom with such force that he knocked him backward, into the nearest wall. Tom laughed, and the sound was so brilliant that for the first time in weeks, Kit felt the shadows drop from his mind. The world was light again. The world had color.

  “Hello, you,” Tom said, his voice muffled by Kit’s enthusiastic greeting.

  Tom was here. Holding him, being held by him, in the queen’s palace. It seemed impossible, but if it was a dream, Kit was content to sleep forever.

  “Hello,” he said, grinning like an idiot, and pulled Tom close and kissed him. Tom’s arms felt so familiar. Stronger than Kit’s, and warmer. He could lose himse
lf in those arms. Tom’s lips parted, and Kit sighed, feeling stronger than he’d felt in months, and more helpless too. He breathed in Tom’s scent, its undertones of cedar, and smiled through the kiss. Home at last, he thought, like the sentimental idiot he knew himself to be.

  They stood there, nose to nose, close enough to kiss again.

  “They let you in,” Kit said.

  “There’s no need to sound so surprised,” Tom said. “They let you in, and you look like you walked here from Cornwall.”

  “All right,” Kit said, pushing Tom away, “if that’s what I get for sincerity…”

  Tom laughed. “I’ve been in London for a few weeks now, since Cambridge. Sir Francis Walsingham sent a man by my rooms yesterday. Must have heard I’d been asking Norgate about you. He said I might come today at five and find you here.”

  There were only two reasons Walsingham would go to Tom. Either this was a strategic play—give Kit what he wanted to heal the wounds left from Northampton, to keep hold of a spy who had proven himself. Or it was meant as a warning. I know about the two of you, I know what he is to you. Don’t ever think you’re a step ahead of me. Well, of course Walsingham knew. If it was a fact in the known universe, Sir Francis Walsingham was aware of it. But whether the spymaster’s motives were strategic or manipulative, it didn’t matter. Tom was here. It was impossible to care about anything beyond that.

  “I love you,” Kit said, without thinking.

  Tom ran a hand through Kit’s hair. Kit pressed his cheek to Tom’s shoulder and sighed, with a smile he couldn’t help. “You did it, love,” Tom said. “You’ve won.”

  The door opened, and Walsingham stepped out into the hall, a sheaf of papers under his arm. Tom froze and started to step back, but Kit didn’t move, or take his arms from around Tom. He’d waited too long to let Tom go now. Walsingham watched them silently, Kit and Tom pressed close as the sea to the sand.

  “Thank you, sir,” Kit said quietly.

  “For what?” Walsingham asked. “It can’t be for teaching you subtlety,” he added over his shoulder, heading down the corridor, “as that seems to have been a profligate waste of time.”