“It certainly wasn’t the plan,” Cecil said tersely, though Kit hadn’t been speaking to him. “But the moment Sir Francis let you out of his sight, you immediately set about becoming the best-known poet in Bankside. Staying discreet is something of a challenge when the better part of London knows your name.”
Despite himself, Kit inclined his head. “You flatter me, my lord.”
“I certainly don’t mean to.”
“Believe me, Marlowe,” Walsingham said, his weary voice severing the fight brewing between Kit and Cecil. “If there were a way for us to let you carry on as you were, we’d have taken it.”
It might have sounded like an insult, but somehow it didn’t. There was something odd in Walsingham’s voice, something almost approaching fondness. As if Walsingham had followed Kit’s rise from afar with satisfaction, enjoying the notion that at least one man had disentangled himself from the queen’s intelligence service. Far from reassured, Kit felt his shoulders tense. If Walsingham was bringing Kit back in against his will, it was because there was no other way, and nothing he could say would stop it.
“We need you,” Walsingham said simply. “You’re the best code breaker we have. No one else comes close.”
Cecil cleared his throat as if sincerely doubting this. Kit clenched his hands until the joints of his fingers ached.
“What’s the job?” he said coldly.
Walsingham sighed. If he could not have courtesy, it seemed, he would settle for obedience. “It has to do with your new patron,” he said. “Lord Strange.”
He had to bite his lip to keep from swearing. His patron, the sign that Kit had talent worth rewarding, Lord Strange was tied to Walsingham. The news seeped through Kit’s memories like a pestilence, coloring everything he’d experienced anew. All of it, all his successes one long strand of a silken web, with Walsingham and Cecil as twin spiders at the center.
“It won’t surprise you to learn,” Walsingham said, shooting Cecil a sharp look imploring silence, “that the death of Mary Stuart left a void in the Catholic hopes for succession, and the rebels have dug up a number of other claimants to fill that space.”
Of course there were other claimants. From what Kit had heard, Mary’s son, James, was out of contention. Too selfish, too flighty, too much a reckless man of twenty-six. And having your mother executed for treason was, likely, something of a deterrent against trying it yourself. Still, there were others beyond James. The Stuart line went deep, with distant cousins and great-great-grandchildren scattered from Scotland to Venice. It startled him, briefly, that he was already thinking this way—mentally running through the list of potential usurpers across Europe, evaluating their threats to the crown. As if he’d been quietly monitoring England’s political threats in the back of his mind all this time.
As if some part of him, some small, reckless, irrepressible part, had hoped this meeting would come.
“You expect me to believe Lord Strange is choosing the Catholic rebellion’s next messiah?” Kit said.
“No,” Walsingham said. “I have reason to believe they’ve chosen him.”
“His mother, Lady Clifford, was named heir presumptive to Her Majesty by the late King Henry,” Cecil said, before Kit could voice a word of surprise. “Lady Clifford is a hellion of a woman, but she has little by way of subtlety, and Her Majesty has her under constant surveillance. Her son, your Lord Strange, is a different matter. A slippery devil, with more connections to suspected papists than an innocent man can be expected to have.”
“Our spies,” Walsingham added, “have also intercepted these coming to and from his estate.”
Kit said nothing as Walsingham gathered a selection of papers from across his desk and pushed them forward. He didn’t mean to look, but his traitorous eyes raked across the ciphered page, looking for patterns among the symbols. Already, he saw resemblances to two alphabets—Greek letters blended with stylized Latin ones, a starting point if nothing else. Not like Mary’s long-gone cipher: this one looked seductive, wide open, welcoming him in.
No.
He turned the topmost page over, glaring at the verso. He’d been used. All this time he’d thought he was building a life for himself, scraping his way up with nothing but determination and talent, Walsingham had been two steps ahead, smoothing his way. All this time he’d thought himself a free man, he’d still been at the end of Walsingham’s leash—imprisonment, still, however long the tether.
“Take those with you,” Walsingham said, as if Kit had already agreed. “Keep us informed as you progress. And in the meantime, work your way into Strange’s confidence.”
“I imagine most of your work might be done from London, but some excursions to Strange’s estate in Derbyshire will be necessary,” Cecil said. “You can control those movements as you see fit, but come to the palace the moment you have something worth reporting. Either Sir Francis or I will receive you.”
Kit wouldn’t let anything shake him, not in front of Cecil. He would be stone, unmoved, unmovable. His nod was as curt as a soldier accepting orders. “Understood, sir.”
“If there are other questions,” Cecil said, rising, “Sir Francis can address them. I am needed at present with the Privy Council. Go out the way you came when you’re finished, Marlowe.” The unspoken Don’t touch anything was clear.
The air in the room seemed instantly lighter the moment Cecil left. Walsingham let out a sigh that, if Kit didn’t know him to be the apotheosis of proper conduct, might have been irritation.
“Close the door, Marlowe,” Walsingham said.
When Kit had done so, Walsingham gave a small grunt as his back touched the chair. He winced slightly, but if he didn’t intend to acknowledge his pain, neither did Kit. “I can’t fault Sir Robert’s skill or his thoroughness,” Walsingham muttered, “but God knows I can fault his personality. Now. You look like you have something to ask me.”
Kit paused, then sank into the chair in front of Walsingham’s desk, gripping the arms until his palms ached. The prime thing he wanted to ask was foolish, and he knew Walsingham would only think less of him if he asked it. But the question raged so loudly in his ears that he couldn’t pay attention to anything else unless he asked.
“I…My patronage, sir. From Lord Strange. Did he give it willingly, or was that you?”
Walsingham laughed, surprised. “I’ve just told you your patron may be plotting a revolution, and that’s what concerns you?”
Kit raised his chin and looked Walsingham dead in the eye. “It is, sir, and I think I deserve an answer.”
Walsingham sighed, his left hand toying with his walking stick. “I may have placed a word somewhere I knew it would travel. An endorsement from the right person can encourage a man to consider an investment he’d previously overlooked.”
So he was right. Kit pressed one hand to his mouth, feeling sharply ill. Was that all he’d ever been? A pawn stupid enough to briefly think itself a king? As if he could have earned what he’d achieved on merit. The world hadn’t changed so much as that.
Walsingham must have seen Kit’s hurt. He sighed and leaned forward, resting both elbows on the desk. “What does it matter? I placed your work in front of Strange, but I didn’t force him to take it. And I didn’t bribe all of London to praise you. Your pride is admirable, in a foolish sort of way, but surely even you must see the past five years of work are yours. Tamburlaine, Malta, the rest of it.”
“I didn’t know I had an admirer in you, sir,” he said coldly.
Walsingham scoffed. “You don’t. I find the theater ridiculous. But my daughter is a devotee. I fear someday she may ask me to facilitate an introduction.”
Maybe it was all part of Walsingham’s game. Flattery, kindness, subtle bribes to keep Kit under his thumb where he was most useful. But flattery had never been the spymaster’s game before, and he’d have known better than to t
hink Kit could be bought off so easily. The compliment was genuine, then. It didn’t matter, not in the face of Kit’s life crumbling to dust around him—but that didn’t mean Kit didn’t like to hear it.
“Write to me next week and tell me how you get on with the letters,” Walsingham said. “If you get somewhere sooner, come in person.”
“Assuming I agree,” Kit said. “Assuming I’m willing to go through with this. Which I don’t recall saying I am.”
Walsingham began to rise, a serpent unfolding to its full terrifying length. But halfway up, he broke off with a hiss and a curse, sinking back to the chair. Kit saw the spasm shivering through Walsingham’s thigh, the muscle shaking, strained and unsteady. Walsingham’s hand convulsed, gripping his leg with crooked fingers. His mouth tightened to a pained slash. Kit jumped up, but Walsingham waved him off. He hung back as Walsingham pressed his eyes shut, breathing sharply.
The shadows under his eyes. The thinness across his shoulders. Walsingham could not be ill, and yet here they stood. Kit found himself unable to look at the spymaster, focusing instead on Sir Robert Cecil’s empty chair.
“If I am indisposed,” Walsingham said, “give your report to Sir Robert. I do not have time to argue with you, Marlowe. I need you on my side.”
Kit paused. Walsingham’s breathing was not quite even. The hand on his thigh trembled.
“Yes, sir,” Kit said.
* * *
—————
Kit arrived at Tom’s lodgings shortly before sunset—too close to city curfew to pretend he meant to return to his own bed that night. They rarely risked this so blatantly: living on opposite sides of the city was an inconvenience, but it was also plausible deniability against a curious landlady or other prying eyes. But tonight, Kit couldn’t bear to be alone. Besides, Tom knew the appointment had been set for ten in the morning. No use pretending Walsingham had forgotten, or that the letter hadn’t meant what they both knew it did.
Tom opened the door the moment Kit knocked. The room behind him was poorly lit, which made him look sallow, almost unhealthy. He said nothing, and Kit said nothing either, for as long as they could let the silence stretch. Then, sitting together on the bed with a terrible, empty space between them, Kit told him everything.
The silence that followed was worse than the one that had come before. It seemed to stretch from each shadow, cold fingers reaching for both of them.
“I’m sorry,” Kit said quietly.
He reached for Tom’s hand, but Tom brushed him aside with a brusque laugh. “No, you’re not.”
“What do you—”
“You love this, Kit. I know you do.”
He pulled back from Tom, chest tightening. “How can you say that? How can you think I want more blood on my hands? Don’t you think I have ghosts enough?”
Tom’s face was blank as glass. “Of course I think so. But you don’t.”
Did he?
He’d rebelled at the very idea of it, terrified into silence by the apparition of yesterday’s messenger. It had all come back to him, the drudgery of intelligence work, the constant fear of discovery, the ever-present threat of war and destruction that could be sparked by the slightest mistake. It had almost broken him in Yorkshire. When he’d turned his attention to poetry, he’d sworn he’d never go back to that life. And here he was, entering upon it again.
Worse still, Tom was right.
There was a thrill to it, one that rang even louder than the fear. Walsingham trusted him. Walsingham needed him. Once again, Kit would be part of these men, these powerful anonymous men whose intelligence and audacity shaped England’s future. With Walsingham, he had the means to rise. To matter. To be the agent no man could replace. Plays were one thing, but this was another sort of immortality.
Kit pinched the bridge of his nose, refusing to look at Tom. He couldn’t bear to see himself in Tom’s eyes, see the selfish liar he knew he’d find there. “It’s different this time,” he said. “I’ll work from London, at night; you’ll hardly notice. I have the theater, I have my friends, I have you. Nothing needs to change.”
Tom looked at him in silence. Even after Kit looked away, he could feel Tom’s gaze bearing down on him, anatomizing every lie, every unspoken thought. Tom knew Kit better than Kit knew himself. There was no hiding anything from him.
“Just don’t talk about it any more tonight,” Tom said. “I can’t stand to hear it.”
It was easier said than done. Kit tried to oblige, to talk about nothing, about the daily business of London living. But underneath every word, he heard a silent scream, a reminder: this is a lie, this life is not your life, this may never be you again.
They went to bed early, the darkness new enough to feel tenuous. Kit ran one hand along Tom’s shoulder in a gentle invitation to intimacy, but Tom shrugged him off and edged to the far side of the bed, his shoulders hunched. Kit sighed and lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He could still feel Tom’s warmth beneath the blankets. He could sense the familiar rhythm of Tom’s breathing. And yet all the while, they were in different worlds. Tom dreaming of the terror, the risk of discovery, the months of panic and sleepless nights and lies. Kit wide awake, thinking of the letters he’d tucked into the interior pocket of his doublet, both doublet and letters across the room in a pool of moonlight.
Sleep wouldn’t come, no matter how much he wished it would. Not with this new task hovering before him, the letters whispering through the silent room.
Kit crept out of bed and removed the letters from his pocket, squinting at the topmost one in the dim glow. Some of it was Greek, certainly, but too much to hope that each letter had simply replaced its Latin counterpart. The Greek and Latin letters alternated in what looked to be a semi-regular pattern—perhaps there was a clue in that?
“Kit,” Tom said quietly from the bed.
Kit let out a long breath, but he didn’t put the letters away. “Go back to sleep,” he said, bending over the page.
Twenty-Eight
Edward went on the way it had begun, as raucous a success as ever, but it scarcely mattered to Kit anymore. He hadn’t felt this nervous—or smoked this heavily—since the first production of Tamburlaine. Then the nerves had been from standing on the brink of a new life, waiting to see what would emerge when the play stood on its own legs. This time, the fear was of his old life rising back up, and whether he’d be clever enough to live through what followed.
After each performance, he broke away from the players early and retired to his Shoreditch room, puzzling over the letters by candlelight. Thomas Kyd, interpreting this as evidence that the muse struck at all hours, said nothing at all about it. Each night, Kit worked until he couldn’t keep his eyes open another moment. Each night, he felt the weave of the cipher loosening, more entry points unfurling to meet him. The work was thrilling, in a way he’d only ever felt after the close of a new play. The thrill of doing something he was good at, of transforming chaos into narrative.
Lord Strange clearly thought himself clever, but he was nowhere near as shrewd as Mary had been. It took slightly more than two weeks before Kit, hunched over his candle sometime past midnight, felt the intoxicating current of a freshly broken code. The letter before him was a short one, and it took almost no time at all to match each ciphered letter to its equivalent, the revealed message spilling forward at his command.
Ask de Vries to approximate how much he’ll need for the task, using the figures provided in your last letter. Impress upon him that time is of the essence.
Kit scowled at the paper. Strange’s cipher might be easily broken, but at least when Kit had untangled Mary’s, he’d known at once what sort of crisis he and Walsingham faced. All Strange had given Kit was the name of a Dutchman and a need for haste. It might have been anything: typical business, a trade deal Strange wanted to follow personally.
It might
have been, but it wasn’t. Innocent men didn’t cipher their business communications. There was more to this, but Kit wouldn’t find out what through Sir Robert Cecil’s sanctioned channels. No, when he returned to Whitehall with news, he’d have something more to show for it than this.
* * *
—————
The following week, Kit watched the afternoon’s performance of Edward II from his usual haunt in the second gallery, doing his best not to let his anxiety show. It became increasingly difficult as the play neared its climax, and when Henslowe appeared beside him at last, the theater manager’s appearance startled him as if he’d been slapped. He jerked away, attracting annoyed glances from the spectators, who had paid for a seat precisely so people like Kit wouldn’t disturb them.
“He’s here,” Henslowe said simply.
“Where?” They both kept their voices low—the audience had turned back to the stage, more interested in the drama in front of them than the one behind.
“Outside,” Henslowe said. “First rule of theater: Don’t antagonize the money.”
Kit gave him the ghost of a smile. “I thought the first rule of theater was ‘Don’t antagonize Philip Henslowe.’ ”
“For you, Marlowe,” Henslowe said gravely, “I’ve had to write a great many new rules.”
As he followed Henslowe down the rickety stairs to street level, he tried to siphon confidence out of the man’s terse remarks. Kit had the talent and the social cachet to needle the owner of the city’s most celebrated theater and get away with it. He wasn’t a nobody anymore—he knew how to get what he came for. They left the Rose and stepped into the muddy Bankside street, and Kit stood as tall as he could. He kept his expression as mild as a tractable servant. Someone with nothing to hide.
“My lord,” Henslowe said.
A Tip for the Hangman Page 21