When he stumbled into the shop at last, just past ten, Evan and Gilbert were already deep in the day’s work, materials spread across the bench, heat emanating from the crucible. They looked up as he entered, then glanced at each other. Kit saw Evan’s silent burning desire to ask what was wrong. And he could see just as clearly Gilbert shutting down any questions. They hadn’t written him off, or they’d have barred the door against him. But even so, he would have to answer for last night.
“Good morning,” Kit said carefully. He received no response.
Ignoring them, Kit sank down at the workbench and set to his task. His hands moved without thought, and the repetitive gestures soon replaced his sharp awareness of their stares. He’d played the part perfectly for months, never let the mask slip for a moment. They would forgive one night of odd behavior—easy to explain by overwork, by exhaustion, by the fumes of molten metal soaring to his head. They’d have to.
Morning wore into afternoon, as did the silence. He heard nothing but their breathing, the lap of the canal outside, the forge’s gentle thrum. It was enough to make him feel mad, as though he’d slipped into the crack between two worlds and no one could see him clearly in either. It seemed as though the quiet might go on forever.
Until there came a thundering pound on the door.
Evan froze. Kit and Gilbert both leapt up and kept their weight low, ready either to attack or defend. Kit reached for the knife he kept at his belt. Gilbert had no weapon, but Kit doubted he’d be at a disadvantage fist to fist, if it came to that. Which it might not, still. The door shuddered again, and Kit knew he was only deceiving himself. They knew no one else in Flushing, no one who needed to knock. Evan, mastering himself at last, swept the coins they’d minted that morning into his palm and flung them into the open cabinet, which he shut and locked.
“Open the door, by order of the governor!” came a voice, followed by another knock that made the hinges flinch.
Gilbert whirled round to face Kit, his anger incandescent. “Did you—”
“Never,” Kit said. “You—”
The door gave way, sagging on knocked-loose hinges. Six soldiers stormed the room, Dutch guards armed to the teeth. They fanned out, taking in the evidence. The forge, the shaved pewter counters, the half-filled molds. The single counterfeit coin that had slipped from Evan’s hands and now lay with the queen’s head facing the ceiling. A soldier picked it up and turned it in his palm. It was a failed attempt, one they’d have melted down at the end of the day to try again. The gold didn’t quite cover the surface. A scratch of ungilded pewter ridged its rim.
“Bring them in,” the soldier said, nodding to his fellows.
Kit tried to make a run for the dangling door, but it was six men to three, and all six outweighed him. A soldier grabbed him by the back of his collar and shoved his chest against the wall with enough force to rattle his teeth. His head was pushed sideways, cheek pressed to cold stone. The soldier wrenched Kit’s arms behind his back and tightened manacles on his wrists until his shoulders screamed with the stretch. Another soldier’s hands went to Kit’s belt, relieving him of his knife. In seconds, they found the smaller blade tucked into his boot and removed that too.
The soldier dragged him forward, through the door behind Gilbert and Evan, both similarly bound. Kit craned his neck, gazing back at the shop.
There, watching the proceedings with unshakable calm, stood Richard Baines.
Baines. Of course it was Baines. Betrayed by the only person in this God-cursed city who knew what Kit was attempting to do, and how much it cost him. Kit swore and strained against the soldiers’ grip, but they dragged him forward, and he could do nothing but keep his feet and be moved. Baines caught Kit’s eye and smirked before falling back into conversation with the soldiers, trailing a few feet behind.
The guards led them to an outpost of the law near the harbor, where the three men were thrown together into a holding cell. Kit staggered at the shove from a guard and fell hard on his knees, wincing as the floor jarred his bones. The door slammed behind them, the key grating in the lock. Six feet by six, the cell barely had room for all three to sit. A chink of a window, about the size of two fists, let a beam of light strike the stone floor. Kit shivered. The window had no glass, and winter air poured inside. He could see his breath. He hunched his shoulders against the cold, taking up as little space as possible.
Prison. Trapped here in another cell, waiting for another sentence to fall. He thought of the sick overconfidence that had plagued him in Newgate and wanted to retch. In the terrible silence of the tiny room, he imagined Tom whispering to him from the shadows, his voice barely audible. It’s over. You’ve lost. You’ve damned both of us.
Evan sat silent in the corner, his lips tracing the outlines of words. His face was deathly pale, even in the poor light. He continued his prayer, eyes shut, ignoring both of them for a world beyond this one. Gilbert, for his part, left God alone. Seconds of silence became minutes.
“Who did you tell?” Gilbert said at last.
“No one,” Kit said. “I swear.”
Gilbert cursed, and the manacles around his wrists rattled as though he’d forgotten about them and tried to lunge at Kit. “Don’t lie to me. You think I’m a fool? You panicked last night, then you ran out and gave us up.”
“I didn’t,” Kit said, though it wasn’t worth arguing. Counterfeiting was a hanging offense under English law, which was why they hadn’t done it in London. But if Baines made a London court take interest, they’d all be dead in the morning, whatever Gilbert thought Kit had or hadn’t done. “Believe me, I would never—”
“I believe you’re a faithless, vile little—”
The door opened, and both Gilbert and Kit fell silent. Evan still had not opened his eyes; it was doubtful whether he even knew they’d been interrupted. The soldier who had opened the door collared Kit and dragged him to his feet with a sharp jerk. Kit stumbled, off-balance without the use of his hands. The memory of Newgate sharpened, along with a rising swell of fear.
“What are you—”
Without a word, the soldier pulled Kit from the cell and locked the door behind him. Again, Kit found himself marched forward, through the long hall of the outpost. A door hung open at the end, and the soldier made directly for it.
Inside, the room was spare. Nothing but a desk, two chairs on either side, candles burning at the center, a few maritime maps nailed to the walls. It might have been midday or midnight in the windowless room. The soldier unlocked the cuff on Kit’s left wrist and closed it on the right arm of the nearest chair, forcing Kit down with one hand on his shoulder. Kit, rattled, didn’t fight it. He didn’t speak, barely thought.
A well-dressed man with a sweeping mustache entered and sat opposite Kit, his expression grave and his posture unimpeachable. The magistrate, Kit assumed. There was a sorrow in the man’s eyes, as if he regretted whatever sentence he was about to pass. A moment later, Richard Baines followed and stood beside the magistrate, his expression impossible to read. In that moment, Kit came to a decision. He would not be hanged. Not for this crime. No, if he were put to death, it would be because he’d stabbed Richard Baines through his lying throat.
The magistrate pulled a writing tablet and pen toward him across the desk, before placing a pair of spectacles on his long nose. As he did so, Baines caught Kit’s eye. Lie, said his gaze. Keep your cover. As if Baines needed to tell Kit that. He’d lie with the best of them to save his own life, without prompting from Richard Baines.
“Name?” the magistrate said, without looking up from the tablet.
Kit swallowed. “Christopher Marlowe, sir.”
“Profession?”
“Scholar and poet, sir. From London.”
The magistrate held up the coin between two fingers. Its pewter stain looked like a gaping mouth, obvious even in the poor light. “And what,
pray tell,” he said, “is a London scholar doing in the company of a pair of counterfeiters?”
Kit’s wrist ached against the tight ring of metal. He focused on the pain, letting it ground him through the lie. “I met those men last night, sir,” he said. “The goldsmith bragged he could coin as well as the queen with common pewter, and his friend challenged him to prove it. I wanted to see. It was a stupid thing to do, but we’d had too much to drink, and I thought it would pass the time. I meant nothing more by it than that.”
The magistrate slapped the coin on the desk. Kit flinched at the sound.
“It hardly matters at this stage what you meant,” the magistrate said. “You are aware, Marley, that coining is punishable by hanging in England?”
Kit said nothing about his name. All he heard was the word hanging. His blood flashed cold as the manacles. He looked at Baines, swallowing his pride, pleading silently. There had to be something Baines could do to nudge this conversation toward safety. A few words, a few coins in the right hand, and Kit would go free as a bystander, someone caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Real gold could sway justice in any nation on earth, and Baines was hardly too scrupulous to stoop to a bribe.
Baines looked away. Kit had never hated anyone so much in his life.
“I promise, sir,” Kit said, “I only wanted to see his cunning in his trade. That’s all.”
Baines turned to the magistrate. “Surely you don’t believe such an obvious lie, sir.”
The words punched a hole in Kit’s lungs. He’d always known Baines hated him. But enough to kill him?
The magistrate frowned. “His story is plausible,” he said, as if Kit weren’t there. “After all, he hardly seems a competent criminal.”
“The worst ones often look that way, sir,” Baines said, gesturing vaguely. “For all you know, this flea-bitten pup could be a rebel, using these false coins to fund the Catholic threat facing London.”
Kit choked on a curse. That snake, that rat, that wretch. “Rebel?” He leapt to his feet, though the chain still kept his wrist anchored tight to the chair. In his anger, he thought he could break it, could leap the desk and rip the life from Baines. “What’s to say you aren’t the traitor, accusing me to save yourself?”
“You’ve some nerve,” Baines cut in, glowering.
“Have I? With what you’ve—”
Baines slammed his hands on the desk, leaning forward, toward Kit. “Go to hell, you piece of filth—”
“Anywhere you are is hell, you toad, you pox-ridden son of a whore—”
“All right,” said the magistrate, holding up a single, weary hand. “That will be quite enough.”
Kit fell silent, breathing hard, and sank back into the chair. His wrist had chafed against the metal cuff, and he felt the skin blister. A drop of blood trailed between his thumb and forefinger.
“You are an English subject, Marley,” the magistrate said, making a note in his tablet. “And you’ve counterfeited English coin. You and your companions will be shipped to London in three days, to be tried before an English court.”
“By the royal secretary,” Baines said. “Sir Robert Cecil.” He glared at Kit across the table, as if to say, There now, you see what I’m trying to do?
It was as if Baines had removed an iron ring around Kit’s lungs. He couldn’t afford to show relief in front of the magistrate, but he felt it like a cool current through his blood. This was what he’d wanted. The work was over. He was going home, to London, away from this winding city where criminals and arms traders slipped like devils through the shadows. Cecil knew his loyalties and would release him. Kit had done what he’d said, and in a matter of days, he would see Tom again.
If Cecil kept his word. The new hope sank as quickly as it had risen. And why would he?
Baines had pulled Kit out too soon, shattering the trust he’d built with Evan and Gilbert, eroding Kit’s carefully laid plans. If everyone but Kit was hanged, Strange would know him for a traitor. And on the other side of the game, in Whitehall, Baines thought Kit was compromised—a fact he would certainly pass on to Cecil.
“Come, Master Baines,” the magistrate said, rising from the desk. “I will write to the secretary and explain the business. Your testimony will assist me in producing an accurate report.”
“Yes, sir,” Baines said. “I’m at your disposal.” He left Kit with a sideways smile.
The door closed, and Kit was alone, chained to the chair, watching the flickering candlelight. He leaned his head into the palm of his free hand, his elbow on the arm of the chair. His breathing sounded like cannon fire through the quiet. The ripple of relief hadn’t left him entirely, but it was ebbing with each heartbeat. With Baines’s testimony, Cecil would see Kit’s weakness laid bare. He would be a liability. An error in need of correction.
And to think that only a day ago he’d been longing to return to London.
Forty
It was early, not yet seven, and weak winter light strained through the narrow windows of Westminster Palace. Kit’s shoulders and wrists ached from the manacles still keeping his hands pinned behind his back. They’d docked only an hour before, the Dutch prison ship coasting into the Thames shortly before sunrise. From there, Baines dragged Kit to shore, leaving Gilbert and Evan aboard, and led him here, to the central hall of justice in London.
Baines opened a door and shoved Kit forward without releasing his hold on Kit’s shoulder. Kit stumbled, then looked up.
He stood in a moderately sized wood-paneled room, lined with tall leaded windows on both sides, a fire roaring in the hearth at the back. After the dim corridor, this room shone with light, a pale glow falling cold and silver against the floor. Kit’s focus drifted to the ceiling, painted deep blue and dotted with golden stars that formed true constellations. The Star Chamber: where the queen dispensed justice. A man might try to read his fate in those stars, but Kit had no faith in astrology. If he lived through this, it wouldn’t be because some heavenly farce had saved him, celestial or divine.
At the center of the room stood a table. Behind the table stood a chair. In the chair sat Sir Robert Cecil.
Cecil leaned forward, resting both elbows on the table. Kit wished he could be surprised that Cecil sat where the queen should have presided. A blazing flash of ego, one that would cost most men their heads. If Cecil could sit there without fear, that gave Kit a sign of how the new spymaster had flourished in his absence.
Baines shoved Kit forward, but Kit shrugged out of his grip. Yes, his hands were chained, he smelled like a Dutch holding cell, he was filthy and hungry, his clothes stiff from brine and overwear. He might be walking to his death, but he’d walk there on his own. He stepped forward to stand before Cecil, Baines still at his shoulder.
Just like the stage, he thought. Hit your mark and tell him what he wants to hear. Easy as lying.
Cecil balanced his chin on his fist. His narrowed eyes never left Kit’s face. “And so the great Christopher Marlowe returns to England,” he said. “In chains, charged with treason for false coining. Somehow, you look even worse than when I saw you last.”
At this point, Kit’s best weapon was silence. He would stand here like an actor center stage and say nothing, not until Cecil pinned him with a direct question. He could feel Baines’s breath behind him, like a wolf at his throat.
“What happened?” Cecil asked.
Richard Baines happened, that was the truest answer, but this was no time to develop a reputation for honesty. Kit clasped his hands behind his back, running his thumb along the blisters on his wrist where the iron had shifted. It hurt, but he needed it to. Without the pain to focus on, he would panic, and the devil only knew what he would say then.
“I told you the plan,” he said. “I was after their connections in the Low Countries, the conspirators selling weapons to England’s Catholics.”
&n
bsp; “And being thrown in prison, that was part of the plan as well?”
“No,” Kit said, his voice tight as the manacles. “That was a complication.” He craned his neck to scowl at Baines. Baines replied with an infuriating smile.
Kit knew Cecil didn’t miss a drop of the antipathy sparking between him and Baines. Cecil was narrow-minded, not stupid. But Kit had spent four days being dragged from holding cell to prison ship to courtroom, underfed and anxious and chained. The anger had to go somewhere, and Baines was a safer receptacle than the spymaster.
“You bid me watch the boy, my lord,” Baines said to Cecil.
Kit clenched his fists. The chains jangled like the tolling of a bell. He would be twenty-nine in a matter of days. Christ above.
“And your opinion?” Cecil said.
“Mixed,” Baines said. “To put it mildly.”
“You’re a shit-crusted toad, is putting it mildly,” Kit said, head twisted over his shoulder to address Baines. “You called the law yourself, you—”
Baines gripped the back of Kit’s neck in one hand and shoved him forward. Kit flinched, from shame as much as pain, and fell silent.
“Yes, I called the law, sir,” Baines said, releasing his hold on Kit’s neck as though relinquishing a pleasure. “With reason.”
Without emotion, Baines recounted the night before Kit’s arrest. His outburst had felt harmless, honest when he made it, but repeated with Baines’s inflection the words sounded like nothing less than an admission of betrayal. Kit watched Cecil’s narrowing gaze watch him, until—he didn’t know when it happened, only that it did—his eyes dropped to the floor. The air felt spun out and clouded, filling his lungs with dust.
When Baines finished, Cecil folded his hands on the table. Kit could feel the blood rushing through his body.
A Tip for the Hangman Page 30