But now, Cecil’s original brief had turned into something of a monologue about the Catholics’ plot to crown Lord Strange, a turn of events that somehow required paying attention to the Low Countries. The change of subject was deeply irritating. Strange was Marlowe’s division, and the last thing Poley wanted to discuss with the spymaster’s mind on promotions was the exploits of another spy. Still, Poley’s primary objective was to be as useful to Cecil as possible. Only a fool wouldn’t give the new spymaster what he wanted, whether that was a listening ear or someone to blame. Advancement came from nurturing the right friendships, thinking three moves ahead. And knowing more about the competition could only be to his good, however unpleasant it was to hear.
A knock at the door. Poley sat up and cocked his head at Cecil like a curious hound. “Expecting company?”
Cecil didn’t dignify this with a response. “Come in.”
The man who entered was one of Cecil’s newer recruits. Poley had met him a handful of times and hadn’t remotely enjoyed any of those meetings. Though Richard Baines’s clothes were impeccably tailored and his shoes clear of mud, there was something about his mane of hair and patchy beard that always made him look unpardonably dirty. At least there was no cause to worry about this interruption. Baines was useful the way a jar of leeches was useful, but there was no risk of Poley losing out to this man.
“You called for me, sir?” Baines said.
“Mm,” Cecil said. It was hard to imagine a sound containing less enthusiasm. “I have your orders. Gravesend, tomorrow morning, first light. The Mercury. You have everything you need?”
Baines nodded. If the idea of leaving the country in less than twenty-four hours alarmed him, his servile nature kept him from showing it. “Yes, sir.”
“Remember what I’ve told you, Baines,” Cecil said. “Do what you must. You may both go.”
Baines bowed; Poley sighed and stretched out of the chair. He could feel the irritation spilling from Baines as he left the room, and he couldn’t deny the reciprocal pleasure the feeling gave him. Richard Baines—useless, pedantic Richard Baines—would be an ocean away this time tomorrow, forced to play nursemaid to a spy Cecil clearly considered to be more important. Meanwhile, Poley would be here, at the spymaster’s elbow. Not quite the right hand, but such things played out in stages, and he was willing to wait.
The hall outside Cecil’s office was deserted, awash with the warmth of afternoon sun. Autumn moved slowly that year, taking its time departing, but the season might turn at any time. All for the best, then, that Baines take the crossing. He tried not to smile at the thought of Richard Baines huddled in a sodden cloak, lank hair spilling water down his forehead, scowling like a drowned polecat. No, he would enjoy that image later, in private.
“God give you a good journey, my friend,” Poley said, his jauntiness insincere enough to be offensive. And good riddance. He turned to go, but Baines stopped him, a deep furrow between his brows.
“Robert.” Baines darted a glance at the door to Cecil’s study, the worry etching deeper. “Do you trust him?”
“Cecil? It’s treason not to, Richard.”
“No. Marlowe, I mean.”
Poley laughed. Idiot fellow. There was only one rule to this business, and that was to assume every person you couldn’t control might be an enemy. “I don’t trust anybody. You don’t want a knife in your back, I suggest you start thinking the same.”
“You know that’s not what I mean,” Baines snapped. “Do you trust him? Or should I…well.”
Poley took a step back and looked at Baines as if seeing him for the first time. He’d be lying to say he hadn’t thought the same thing, but he’d never imagined someone who cared for protocol and procedure as much as Baines did would have the foresight to think strategically. It wasn’t respect, exactly, what this development engendered in him. But he took a sort of condescending pride in seeing that Baines had very nearly reached Poley’s own conclusion.
Sir Robert Cecil was in charge of the queen’s intelligence. Cecil decided who fell and who thrived, who held the kind of power ordinary men only dreamed of. And Cecil didn’t trust Marlowe. For good reason—Marlowe was Walsingham’s golden boy, and anyone could see his loyalty had been sworn to the man and not to the office. Cecil wanted proof his suspicions of Marlowe were well founded. And a man who pointed out a Judas before he could do damage could count on a reward beyond measure.
“Keep an eye on him,” Poley said. “Don’t do anything rash, but see what you can learn. And send it on to me with Cecil’s reports.”
Baines nodded. “Anything we can use, I’ll share it.”
“Good man,” Poley said. He extended a hand, and Baines shook it, then vanished down the long corridor to prepare for his journey across the sea.
It was almost a shame, Poley thought. He arched his back, taking pleasure in the way his vertebrae popped and released the tension from an afternoon of sitting. Marlowe was an idiot, yes, and twice as arrogant as any living man had the right to be, but if Poley were forced to choose Marlowe or Baines to pass an evening at a tavern with, well, Baines would spend the night alone and sober. But that, of course, was beside the point. Poley’s opinions were malleable, easily adjusted for the right price. No one rose in this world without stepping on the back of another.
He strolled toward the outer courtyard, humming the snatch of a tune he’d picked up in a Whitefriars tavern the evening before. Times were changing, and by God, he’d see that they changed in his favor.
Thirty-Six
The Mercury drifted toward Flushing’s docks just as the sun sank from sight. Over the rail of the ship, the waves glittered a slick, sealskin purple, the sharp red of approaching sunset flaring at the horizon. Kit’s stomach turned with the remnants of seasickness. Lips pressed together, he gripped the ship’s rail until splinters sliced his palms. Before this, he’d never left England, never set foot on a ship, never braved water wider than the Thames. Nauseated and fighting a splitting headache, he began to understand why.
He watched the city rise into focus as dockhands rushed to prepare their arrival. From afar, Flushing had been a dark smudge on the horizon. From here, their ship swaying at the docks, it exuded a slanted, rickety dignity. Kit felt most at home these days among close buildings and briny streets, but London always seemed to have sprung up overnight, houses rising in a panic to cope with a sudden onslaught of men. Flushing laid claim to the land and water as twin birthrights. Its two long, narrow docks jutted out into the North Sea, which penetrated the land in a thousand places, canals and inlets and waterways slipping narrow fingers through the city’s brick and stone walls. From the center of town, a sharp steeple stretched toward the heavens. Sea and land and sky and God, cutting against one another until their borders blended.
Kit felt a firm hand on his shoulder. He turned, irritation rising with the bile in his throat. Richard Baines stood behind him, expression sour, pale skin slightly pink from the sun.
“Keep your head down, when you go,” Baines said.
Kit shrugged his hand off. “I have someone to meet,” he said in Dutch—rusty but passable, dredged up from Cambridge lessons he’d never expected to use. “I’ll find you when you’re needed.”
He felt Baines tense, but he didn’t care. Kit had a job to do, and he meant to do it fast. Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Northampton—those had been easy compared to this. Yes, the stakes had been high, a nation’s safety depending on his quick thinking. But it was different now, the consequences more immediate. Any mistake could be the one to get Tom killed. It had never dawned on him until now how much he suddenly had to lose.
If only there had been someone else he knew he could trust. But the only man who had ever been able to help him in this business was Walsingham, by now entombed in marble. Walsingham would never pull him aside again to propose a solution, to reveal the next step, to lend hi
m the warm glow of confidence, of faith. Kit was on his own.
The moment Kit’s boots hit the dock, a rush of relief spilled through the nausea. A voyage spent vomiting had left his head pounding and his stomach weak. He longed for a few restorative hours of darkness and silence, but that would have to wait. He wandered along the inner harbor, going slow while his legs remembered the feel of land.
London fancied itself cosmopolitan, but its fear of immigrants, sects, and difference permeated every wall and cobblestone. Kit hadn’t realized the extent of that fear until now, when he saw its absence. Stepping into Flushing was like tumbling into a kaleidoscope. Kit had never seen a patchwork of humanity like this. People everywhere, weaving across the cobbled streets, pouring out of buildings timbered like matchsticks, shouting at one another from the rigging of bobbing ships flying flags of a dozen nations. He heard five languages without trying, though the throaty, lilting voices of Dutchmen seemed to carry the loudest.
An ideal city for a man to disappear in. So much the better.
A broad canal split Flushing in half, narrowing as he plunged deeper into the city. Gradually, he reached the square at the center of town, where a market would spring up the next morning. Nearby, a stone bridge spanned the canal, now only ten feet wide, too narrow for ships. Kit saw his destination on the opposite bank: the steps of Saint Jacob’s, the tall-spired church that spiked upward like the Tower of Babel.
He settled in to wait as Flushing’s inhabitants milled around him. He sat midway up the stairs, leaned back on his forearms, and stretched out his legs. The welcome of dry land nursed his headache. The sun had dipped behind the buildings, eliminating the stabbing pain of reflected sunlight. Sparks like will-o’-the-wisps danced along the waters of the canal. It might have been beautiful, if he’d been in the mood to find it so. But all he could see were the lengthening shadows, spreading like the dark double images of gravestones at sunset.
Distraction would only open him to mistakes, and he couldn’t afford to be careless. He’d think of Tom when he was alone, once the day was finished and he’d chased down a flea-bitten bed somewhere in this rickety city to call his own. Then he could hate himself as long as he cared to. Now he would do what he’d trained to do.
Walsingham would never have believed it, but years of intelligence work had taught Kit patience. It took half an hour before he saw two men cross the bridge toward him, but the time hardly troubled him. He unfurled from the steps, nodding as they approached. Evan, looking fresh and unbothered by the sea crossing—more happiness to him, if he’d been born with sea legs. And a second man, short and ginger haired, dressed in rough wool. The man took in Kit’s appearance in one sweep of his eyes, evaluating him as a potential threat. Kit couldn’t see where he concealed his weapon, but surely this man never went anywhere unarmed.
“Marlowe,” Evan said, beaming. “Pleasant journey?”
Kit thought of the hundred and fifty miles he’d spent vomiting into the sea, Richard Baines over his shoulder looking for reasons to have him hanged. “We didn’t sink,” he said fairly.
“Although it looks like you’ve suffered everything else,” Evan said, taking a step nearer. “Mary and Jesus, what happened?”
“This?” Kit gestured vaguely at the bruises across his face.
Evan sighed. “No. Your charming personality.”
“It’s nothing,” Kit said with a shrug. “You ought to see the other fellow.”
“Something tells me I don’t want to.” When Kit didn’t contradict him, Evan—perhaps wisely—elected to change the subject. “Apologies for the wait. I had a friend to collect. Gifford Gilbert, goldsmith extraordinaire,” he said, indicating the ginger-haired man.
“I’ve heard reports of you, Marlowe,” Gilbert said. His voice took Kit by surprise: higher than he’d expected, and rougher, as if he spoke only when necessary. “Lord Strange says you’re quite the poet.”
International celebrity, or something close. “I try to be,” Kit said, with unconvincing modesty. “But that’s not why I’m here.”
Gilbert smiled. Kit thought of a lizard sunning on a rock, lipless mouth curved. “No,” Gilbert said, “it isn’t. Unless you need to rest?”
Kit shook his head. He hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep in weeks. No reason to begin now. “Lead the way,” he said.
Evan clapped Kit on the shoulder as they left the church, his smile warm beneath his weak mustache. Kit suspected Evan was new to Lord Strange’s ranks. Perhaps this was his first official task, to accompany Kit across the sea. It seemed the only way to explain his enthusiasm. Evan was thirty if a day, but Kit felt like a jaded old man beside him, wary and bitter.
Gilbert guided them off the main thoroughfare, into the heart of the city. Even as they left the canal, Kit could still hear the soft lap of water. Perhaps there was another conduit nearby. Land threaded through with sea, like blue veins on the back of an old man’s hand. They passed into the southern quarter, where Kit could see the city walls in the chinks between buildings, each brick slick and almost green with the sea air. As in London, the buildings grew shabbier the farther they passed from the city center. Not quite Bankside’s orgy of immorality, but all the same, these were the sorts of alleys mothers warned their children to avoid.
The shop, when they entered it, reminded Kit at once of his father’s. The tools were different: harsh iron shears, a battered mallet, delicate knives for etching, the forge reeking of smoke. But the feel of it, everyday objects broken down and made strange, came too close to childhood for comfort. Gilbert looked at home here, as he lit a lamp and bathed the shop in amber light. Kit could picture him working contented for hours, shaping and bending ribbons of gold. He shivered, though the room was warm.
Gilbert bent to a cabinet along the wall and pulled a small key from his pocket. As he spoke, he pulled the door open, then rifled through the detritus inside. “The funny thing about gold,” he said, “is how little you need. So long as the outer layer looks good, no one cares what happens inside. Like a courtier, hmm? Loyal on the outside, rotted black within.”
He stood with a grunt, holding two small circular pieces of metal in his hand. Kit stepped forward, squinting at them. It was as if someone had split a shilling in half. The queen’s portrait, etched in perfect sunken reverse on one side, and the crown embedded into the other. A mold, Kit realized, picking it up to examine it. An impeccable piece of work.
“Dip a circle of pewter in gold,” Gilbert said, “close it in this, strike it hard enough, and not a man alive will know you’re passing it off.”
Kit grinned and handed the mold back. “An artist,” he said. “Christ. Where were you five years ago, when I was walking around with holes in my shoes?”
Gilbert warmed at Kit’s appreciation. He removed a box from the cabinet, in which Kit could see a collection of molds in varied sizes and denominations. “It’s slow going. A one-at-a-time business. But if you want something done right, you don’t rush.”
This wasn’t what Kit wanted to hear. The longer they took, the more chances for Kit to fail, to let something slip, to get himself caught. The longer Tom would be at risk.
“We’ll begin in the morning,” Evan said, with a soft yawn. “You’ve found lodgings, Marlowe?”
Kit nodded. He hadn’t, but he didn’t want a place at Evan’s recommendation. Not when Richard Baines might appear around any corner expecting a report. He had two masters as long as he was here, and the only way he’d stay alive was if the one never met the other. “I’ll be back first thing tomorrow,” he said.
“Good,” Evan said. “Rest well. God help you, but you look as if you need it.”
Outside, night had fallen, and the cobblestones seemed coated in silver, counterfeiting as pearls. He took a deep breath of briny air, then let it out. Maybe it was the stress of the journey, maybe something else, but he couldn’t stop thinking
of strangers watching him in the dark.
“It went well, I take it?” said Richard Baines, leaning against the building opposite.
Kit swore. His hand jerked toward his knife without thinking. Baines’s unfriendly smile looked alien in the moonlight.
“You followed me?” Kit said.
Baines shrugged. “Of course. That’s why I’m here.”
“Don’t let them see you with me,” Kit snapped. “They’ll have me killed.” He started to walk toward a public house he’d spotted on the way to the church, one that looked dirty enough to offer cheap rooms. Baines followed on his heels. “Christ, are you planning to lodge with me?”
Kit said this without the slightest hint of an invitation. If he found anything less appealing than sleeping on the street, it was the notion of Richard Baines as his bedfellow. But Baines looked at Kit with too much disgust for an ordinary insult.
“Not on your life.” Baines slowed his pace, widening the distance between them. “You think I don’t know what you are?”
Kit blinked. “And what am I?” he said coldly.
“Kit Marlowe, king of New Sodom,” Baines said, spitting against the street. “I swear to the living God, if you think I’ll make a fair substitute for your Newgate whore, I will—”
It would have been so desperately easy to knife Richard Baines between the ribs and leave him to bleed out in this Flushing back alley. It wasn’t as if he’d have people home in London to miss him. How was Kit meant to bear it, this man who could think of Tom in the shadow of the hangman and see only something perverse? If it had been Kit’s life alone at stake, he’d have done it, and to hell with the consequences. Instead, he turned away.
A Tip for the Hangman Page 28