From behind his desk, Cecil watched him as warily as the dog did. “My God,” Cecil said. “You look like you’ve come from Bedlam.”
Kit’s jaw twitched. “Bedlam, Newgate,” he said with a shrug that ached the muscles all down his back. “Details.”
Cecil leaned back, either to convey boredom or to edge farther from the reek of sewer spilling from Kit. “I would give a good deal to learn what went on in Walsingham’s head when he recruited his agents. Common brawlers and cutthroats, all of them. Lacking a gentleman’s understanding of circumspection. How much time he must have wasted, dragging his men out of prison and sending them back on their way.”
Kit had forgotten since Cambridge how deep that sneered common could cut. To hell with prudence. Nerves, fear, and a strong, persistent loathing formed a kind of madness that scorned caution. “I’d rather speak with Sir Francis, if it’s all the same to you,” he said.
Cecil frowned. “Ah,” he said. “You don’t know. I suppose in Newgate you wouldn’t.”
Kit hadn’t thought his stomach could drop further. “Know what?” The setter, as if sensing the turn in Kit’s mood, raised its head to watch.
Cecil stood. A mistake, Kit thought, from a great distance. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been taller than someone. Walsingham loomed over his agents like the statue of a saint, but Cecil ought to know he was more impressive seated than standing. It was easier to think this than to imagine what Cecil might say next, what exactly it was that Kit didn’t know.
“Sir Francis Walsingham passed away three days ago,” Cecil said. “From a long illness. Full management of Her Majesty’s intelligence forces has descended onto me.”
Kit said nothing. There was nothing to say. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. He was purged clean, an empty shell where Cecil’s words could rebound and echo.
Dead.
It had never occurred to him, somehow, that he might outlive the spymaster.
They drifted back to him, an unbidden memory. Walsingham’s glittering black eyes, drilling through him, trusting him, choosing him.
What the devil does your father have to do with it? My concern is with you.
The ache in Kit’s chest sharpened. Piercing, silencing. He let his head fall forward and gripped the back of the chair as tightly as he could, lingering drops of rainwater falling from his hair to the wood. It hurt. It almost bent him double, this mad, irrational grief. It hurt, and it made no sense, and he didn’t ask it to.
Walsingham. The man who had seen him at Cambridge. Who had used him and exploited him, yes, but who had seen him. Who believed Kit could be more than he was, more than a poor boy with wild dreams and a deviant reputation. Who believed in his capabilities when no one else did. Who gave him freedom, gave him theater, gave him all of this.
Sir Francis Walsingham was dead. Kit had never felt more betrayed.
And Robert Cecil. His destiny rested in the hands of this petty little man who looked at Kit like horseshit in a public lane, who’d leaned forward to watch the axe cut Mary Stuart’s neck like an apprentice at a bearbaiting. His destiny and Tom’s. Kit’s head felt thick and blurry, but he forced himself to ignore the erratic thud of his heart. Sorrow was for men who didn’t still have a job to do. He could mourn once Tom was safe.
Cecil paced to the fireplace, looking at the ash-strewn stones. The setter shambled out of the way, nosing at the hearth as it went. A small line of soot smeared across its nose. “So if you have news,” Cecil said, as though he’d remarked on the weather, “you might deliver that to me.”
He could hate Cecil all he liked, but not until he’d gotten what he needed. Kit inclined his head and took another moment to steady himself. Then he spoke, as coldly and quickly as he could, telling Cecil everything Evan Lloyd had shared in Shoreditch.
Once Kit finished, Cecil remained gazing into the unlit hearth. He laced his fingers behind him, resting his knuckles on the small of his back. Though Cecil—the spymaster, now—said nothing, Kit could see his jaw working, as though testing out words before speaking them.
“It’s clever, I’ll grant you that,” he said finally. “You find yourself in Newgate on track for the hangman, and suddenly the papists have invited you to flee the country.”
Flee? As if Kit had invented the threat of revolution for his own benefit. Walsingham would have trusted Kit implicitly, but if Cecil didn’t find his report credible, he’d be staring down his own death. “Sir,” he said—it bordered on pleading, but honor was hardly the primary objective now. “I’m not lying. The names I’ve given you, Strange’s contacts in the country, that proves it, it’s all true. If they’re trying to buy an army in the Low Countries, you want me there.”
It felt like the end of the world, waiting for Cecil to speak. His face was unreadable. Even in the earliest days of Kit’s service, when Walsingham had seemed to be an unknowable, omnipotent force, he had never been like this.
At last, Cecil turned to look at Kit properly. “When the rebels send for you, you will go,” he said. “You will join them in Flushing. I will expect written, ciphered reports, twice monthly or the moment you learn anything of value. Be detailed. And Baines will accompany you.”
The words landed in Kit’s ear like a death sentence. Strange and his people trusted Kit—as much as they ever trusted anyone—but he was already on delicate footing. If he turned up in Flushing with Richard Baines at his elbow, what would they think? That they’d been betrayed. Only an idiot would think anything else. Cecil would get Kit killed this way.
Seeing the coldness in Cecil’s eyes, Kit wondered whether that wasn’t the point.
“Sir Francis may have entertained your unorthodox methods,” Cecil said with a visible sniff at Kit’s doublet, split up the shoulder at the seam, the shirt beneath stained copper with blood, “but I am not Sir Francis.” The dog watched Cecil pace away with something that Kit, in a sudden wash of empathy for the animal, interpreted as relief. “Baines will provide his opinion of your behavior and your information upon his return. I will not allow your poor judgment to jeopardize England.”
No, Kit thought. Cecil’s poor judgment would take care of that.
Probation. Suspicion. To believe he intended to cross sides and join the rebels, with the stakes this high. Walsingham would have shouted at Cecil until his voice gave out if he’d heard about this. Walsingham would have trusted Kit. He always did.
But Walsingham was dead, and Kit had to keep living, however he could.
Cecil sat, reaching for his papers. The dog sat in front of the desk, ears pricked at attention. “You may go,” Cecil said. His focus was elsewhere, as if Kit had metamorphosed into a piece of furniture before his eyes.
Kit stood his ground. “Sir,” he said. “There’s something else.”
“Is there,” Cecil said without looking up.
It felt like asking a favor of the executioner, but Kit didn’t have a choice. He could see Tom in his mind again, the dead-eyed expression of a man who had seen this coming before the thought even dawned on Kit. I know, Kit thought. I know, it’s my fault. And I’m trying.
“My friend,” Kit began, and the evasion tasted sour on his tongue, as if he’d betrayed Tom all over again by speaking it. “Tom Watson. We were both arrested, but none of it was his fault. He was only involved in this because of me.”
“Yes,” Cecil said. “I keep myself informed.”
Now or never. If he had to get on his knees and grovel, he’d cut out his own pride with a knife and do it. “Sir, please. Send him a pardon. Anything you want from me in return, you’ll have it, just, please. This one thing.”
The silence that followed was as charged as a lifted axe, one that might be tossed aside or slice through bone. Kit was no longer breathing. The back of the chair dug into his hands.
Then Cecil frowned. “That would hardly
be in my best interest, would it?”
Kit’s knees buckled. If not for the chair, he’d have fallen. “Sir?”
“You’re a risk, Marlowe,” Cecil said. He made a note on one of the papers, as though Kit’s rising panic wasn’t worth his attention. “Walsingham may have found your recklessness attractive, but I don’t endure risks without surety. Your friend will live in Newgate under my protection while you are in the Low Countries, to hang or be freed at my word. So I suggest, in future, you behave rather more carefully than you’re used to.”
Kit’s mind burned. The flames crept bolder, slowly at first, then all at once. His panic crumbled under the heat of his anger, into moth-gray cinders and curling smoke. When he spoke, his voice was low, hoarse as a curse.
“You can’t do this.”
Cecil made a dismissive noise and gestured toward the door, but Kit had the audacity of a man with nothing to lose. Ignoring his own pain, he leaned over the desk and shoved Cecil’s papers aside, scattering them like leaves in the wind. Beside him, the setter gave an alarmed bark, then retreated to the corner—clearly no guard dog, as Kit would throttle Cecil if he could manage it.
“Lord Strange trusts me,” Kit said. “He wants the queen dead. I know his contacts across the country. He’s building an army. Do you know what I could do with that, if you test me?”
“So you’ll turn traitor?” Cecil said. “Run off and join the Catholics? How Walsingham got anything useful out of an idiot like you is beyond me. Betray us and you’d be at Tyburn by sundown, hanged by your own bowels.”
The threat breezed past Kit. He had never cared less for his own life. Even the sound of Walsingham’s name in Cecil’s mouth was a desecration. “You’ll release Tom,” he said. “And you’ll do it now.”
Cecil’s laugh was like bellows to the flame of Kit’s anger. “I offered you his life,” he said. “Without me, he’ll swing by week’s end. You won’t get a better bargain.”
One man was dead already. What was another? The devil himself couldn’t have played Kit so expertly as Cecil had. Kit was unarmed—Newgate had seen to that—but he’d never needed a knife to make a man bleed.
But what good would that do? None, but to cost him his head. And Tom’s.
So he would remain silent. Humble. Servile. Quiet, obedient, with no protests and no questions. Under observation, watched like a criminal. Controlled by a man who didn’t care if he walked or hanged. Until Tom was free. After that, he would make Cecil pay, whatever the cost.
“I’ll go,” Kit said, his voice a hard-edged murmur. “But when you wake in the night with my knife at your throat, I want you to know why.”
Cecil shook his head. “You think you’re the first man to threaten me with a knife? Again, you are dismissed.”
Kit stood one moment more and thought of his fist shattering Cecil’s satisfied smirk, taking that expensive pen from his desk and stabbing it through the spymaster’s neck. The blood would spurt up like a fountain. It might even be worth the hanging that would follow, for the chance to see it.
As he opened the door, he heard Cecil’s voice call one last time.
“And for God’s sake, Marlowe, have a wash. You smell like you’ve slept in shit for a month.”
* * *
—————
He considered returning home from Whitehall. Wash the blood from his hands, burn his clothes in his landlady’s hearth, and drink until it was possible to fall asleep again. But Kit was no longer inside himself, a body piloted without an animating spirit. He couldn’t go to that building in the shadow of Bedlam, where the tiny room would make him think of Walsingham’s grave, and the screams that had become routine would now forever remind him of Tom, sitting alone in the darkness, waiting for the shadows to swallow him.
Kit went, instead, to the only place in London that still felt safe.
It was nearly sundown, and the Rose was long empty of the crowds that had flocked to see that afternoon’s production—judging from the bills nailed up outside, Robert Greene’s Orlando Furioso. The season was nearly over, moving rapidly toward winter, but the air still hummed with the snap of late autumn.
He sat on the edge of the stage, legs dangling several feet above the ground, and looked out into the empty pit. In war, he thought, they buried men in mass graves about this size. Sir Francis Walsingham would be buried at Saint Paul’s, with as little ceremony as his surviving relations could manage. Walsingham would rather have died a second time than have London’s essential operations disrupted on his account. Kit would visit his grave when he returned. If he returned.
He would be in the Low Countries by week’s end, with a sea between him and Tom, and nothing he could do but pray that Cecil was a man of his word. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t leave something of himself behind.
The tiring-house was cluttered with props and prompt books and other detritus actors had left behind—a thief’s paradise, if any of it held the slightest value. Still, what Kit needed was priceless beyond measure, and the theater had always been one place he could count on getting it.
Sure enough, it was the work of a few minutes to dig out two pieces of paper that were blank on the verso, along with a cracked pen and the bare minimum of ink. He sank onto the stage floor, muscles aching, and wrote until the light disappeared entirely. He’d have Gregory see to both matters in the morning.
* * *
—————
Evan Lloyd was as good as his word. When Kit returned home that night, sunset sending its last flaming fingers between Shoreditch’s cramped buildings, a piece of paper waited for him on the threshold. He bent to snatch it up—no doubt Thomas Kyd had walked past it half a dozen times already, refusing even to touch anything associated with Kit and his friends. Leaning against the door for support, he unfolded the note.
Friday. First light. Burn this.
That night, he did, watching the flames curl and char the page.
The next day, he sent word to Cecil telling Richard Baines to prepare for departure. Thursday, he paid Thomas Kyd the following month’s rent and moved out, leaving his scant possessions in the Rose’s attic space for the time being. Who knew how long he’d be gone? Just before curfew, he met with Arthur Gregory, handing him two papers. One with simple instructions on where to send Kit’s pay in the time he was abroad—a Mistress Margaret Bradley in Canterbury. The other a letter, carefully sealed, with curt instructions on where to deliver it.
Then, once the city streets were quiet and the only eyes to avoid those of the watch, Kit crossed south of the river to the George Inn, where he knew full well he was expected.
The door was unlocked despite the late hour, which Kit had anticipated. The front room was dim, most chairs flipped upside down onto their tables to bare the floor for cleaning. The only light came from the moon through the window, and from a tiny flickering light, its source concealed behind the wooden partition. Kit moved toward it like a bewitched man.
At the same table he’d taken before, Lord Strange took a deep pull on his pipe before exhaling a lungful of smoke into the room. The light in the bowl was strengthened by a single candle on the table, both of which gave Strange’s face a darkened cast, like a statue carved into a deep alcove. He nodded toward the empty chair across from him, and Kit sat without protesting.
The moment Kit was properly in view, Strange inhaled sharply and leaned across the table. “By the Virgin, Marlowe,” he said, the oath escaping in a breath of smoke, “are you all right?”
Kit unconsciously brought one hand to his left eye, where he knew the bruises were at their most lurid. It didn’t escape him that Cecil hadn’t asked anything of the sort. “It’s nothing,” he said. “A stupid mistake. I’m ready for tomorrow.”
Strange nodded, though Kit’s half-hearted reassurance evidently hadn’t convinced him. He extended the pipe stem first, and Kit took it
gratefully, inhaling deeply before passing it back. The inn felt doubly silent this late at night, every whistle of the wind loud enough to startle.
“I’ve arranged your passage on the Mercury,” Strange said, settling back into the chair. “From Gravesend. Ask for Anders; he’ll be expecting you. Evan will travel separately, for caution’s sake, but you’re to meet him at Saint Jacob’s when you arrive.”
Kit nodded. The facts etched themselves into his memory, sounds without feeling attached. Mercury. Gravesend. Anders. Saint Jacob’s. A series of steps between him and his return to London, when he could take Tom’s hand in his again and see him safely in the light. Gravesend. Saint Jacob’s. Tasks to complete one by one until nothing more remained.
“I wanted to tell you, Marlowe,” Strange said, after a moment’s pause. “I know what you’re risking, in a role like yours. I know what I’m asking isn’t easy. But we will succeed. And when we do, no king will ever do more by a subject than I will by you. I promise you that.”
King. It was the first time Kit had heard Strange say the word aloud. Unable to think of more, Kit added it to the list, another task. Mercury. Anders. Saint Jacob’s. King.
“Good luck,” Strange said quietly.
Kit bowed his head. “Thank you, sir.”
Thirty-Five
Robert Poley slouched in an armchair in Cecil’s study, forcing himself to listen to the spymaster without bitterness. The conversation had begun as a discussion of Poley’s new rank and responsibilities as Cecil reassigned Walsingham’s former agents to suit his needs: the most interesting subject, in Poley’s opinion, that the spymaster could have chosen. Arthur Gregory had been Walsingham’s right-hand man, but it was as clear as watered-down ale that Cecil wouldn’t keep him in the role. Cecil operated differently. He needed someone who understood the way he thought. And while the conversation had tended in that direction, Poley had been only too happy to listen. No decisions made at present, but he’d take progress as it came.
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