A Tip for the Hangman

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A Tip for the Hangman Page 32

by Allison Epstein


  Gradually, the crowd began to disperse. Not back to work, not yet—the holiday atmosphere would last all day, long after the criminal had been cut down. But they would move their revels somewhere else, away from the body, which no longer offered any entertainment, and would begin to smell.

  “Kit,” Tom said. “It’s finished. Come on.”

  “You go,” Kit said. “There’s something I have to do.”

  “Kit, please.”

  Kit turned to look at him. Tom held both Kit’s hands in his. Kit could read his thoughts as if they were his own. Please don’t do this. Stop taking risks, stop planning, just stop. For once in your life, put this aside and come home with me, like any normal person would do.

  This kind, handsome, clever man, brave and loyal and charming, who loved him. Who had suffered for him and still stood by his side, wanting nothing more than a breath of quiet in repayment. What wouldn’t Kit have given to leave this behind, turn his back on the gallows, and give Tom the peace he’d always wanted?

  “I’m sorry,” Kit said, kissing Tom on the cheek. Willing to risk anything, to make him understand. I know I’m hurting you, the kiss said. But I’m doing it so I won’t hurt you more. So nothing else will hurt you. “He’s here.”

  Tom glanced into the crowd—as if he’d have known whom to look for. His entire body tensed, leaving him looking vulnerable and barely healed despite the swordsman’s stance. Finally, he nodded. He held Kit’s hands another moment, then brought them to his mouth and pressed a soft kiss on the inside of Kit’s wrist, right at the line of his pulse, gentle against the scars. He let go and turned, disappearing into the crowd.

  When Tom was safely gone, Kit pushed against the retreating tide of bodies, toward Lord Strange.

  Strange stood tall and impassive, looking intently at the body. He didn’t so much as glance at Kit. Deep shadows circled his eyes, as though he hadn’t slept well since the announcement of Lloyd’s sentence. Kit had no doubt he looked much the same.

  “A question for you, Marlowe,” Strange said softly, his breath fogging in the cold. “Is it coincidence that every person of faith who works alongside you ends up dead? First Mary Stuart, now this. It’s enough to make me wonder. Will it be me next, do you think?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “No,” Strange interrupted, “don’t answer. I already know what you’ll say. You were all caught together, but you pled your case in front of Cecil. You claimed you’d planned this all along. Is that it?”

  Kit lowered his head. “The job was a risk,” he said. “We all knew that. Evan is a good man.” His voice cracked as he realized what he’d said. “He was a good man,” he corrected quietly, swallowing hard. Tears, though honest, would ring false to Strange. He had to be who Strange thought he was: a man willing to sacrifice, dedicated to the cause, and strong enough to bear it.

  “He was,” Strange said. “See that you remember it. Every day, if you can.”

  He looked over his shoulder at the clearing crowd. Few people remained in the square now, only the dregs. Pickpockets, beggars, a woman wailing to herself in a language Kit did not know. Not much time left—Strange couldn’t be the last person in the crowd, not when the body of his fellow believer still hung from a rope over their heads.

  “I’m not accusing you of anything, Marlowe,” Strange said. He still hadn’t looked at Kit. “Men want to live. It’s only natural. But I need to know you’re willing to do what it takes, if the moment demands of you what it demanded of Evan. I’ll let you decide how you intend to prove it to me.”

  Without giving him a chance to respond, Strange joined the sweep of people streaming south toward the city. In a moment, his distinctive stride disappeared into the crush of fabric and footsteps and voices, vanished with the skill of ghosts and hunted men.

  Kit turned back to the scaffold. The motionless body of Evan Lloyd still dangled from its dirty rope in front of him, its staring eyes wide. Kit stood there, staring back.

  Forty-Two

  Across the square at Tyburn, wrapped in a fox-fur cloak against the cold, Robert Poley leaned against an overturned cart beside Richard Baines. Together, they watched Marlowe stare up at the traitor’s slowly revolving body. He stood alone, long after the man in the black cloak left him. He said nothing, did not move. Poley hadn’t seen Marlowe look like that since Northampton, when he’d fled Mary Stuart’s execution. Like a sleepwalker, or a mourner at a funeral.

  It was suspicious.

  Moreover, it was an opportunity.

  Poley glanced to Baines and cocked an eyebrow. “What do you make of that?”

  Baines spat against the dirty ground; it smoked in the cold like hot piss. “I don’t trust it.”

  That was hardly a resounding endorsement of Poley’s opinion. Richard Baines would suspect his own mother if he could benefit from it. But Cecil didn’t trust Marlowe either, and in Poley’s current profession Cecil’s opinion was the only one that mattered.

  At last, Marlowe turned away from the body and left the square, back toward the city.

  “Follow him,” Poley said, nodding after Marlowe. “Today, tomorrow, whenever you can. See what you can find. Cecil will want to know.”

  Baines nodded grimly. “I’ll find enough,” he said, setting off.

  * * *

  —————

  Weeks later, Poley made his way to Whitehall after dark, in blatant disregard of the city curfew. Most men would be nervous, receiving a summons from Sir Robert Cecil at this hour, but Poley had worked hard to be sent for like this. If Cecil needed him, it was because Poley had gone out of his way to be needed. Flattering Cecil at every turn, even before Walsingham died, the moment he saw how the wind was blowing. He’d never once strayed from his devotion to the work, volunteering his services while Kit Marlowe—once Walsingham’s shining star—faded into a life of taverns and playhouses. Marlowe’s return to intelligence work had been a complication, and for a short time Poley had feared Marlowe would usurp his place as the spymaster’s right-hand man. But after the Low Countries—ages ago now, with the last of winter’s snows gone and the bodies of the two counterfeiting traitors long since food for crows—Marlowe’s star had plummeted, and Poley could feel his own soaring like a comet.

  Two men already occupied the office when he entered. Cecil, of course, at his desk as always. He’d pulled the curtains over the window, keeping out the night, and sat surrounded by papers: ledgers and trade maps and a thick manuscript, written in verse. The furrow in his brow seemed deeper now. Clearly no one had warned Cecil that the corollary of absolute authority was paperwork. Richard Baines sat in a wooden chair near the hearth, expression sour as ever. He and Poley nodded at each other, the easy familiarity of partners but not friends. A man couldn’t choose his allies, nor expect them to be especially charming in conversation. Poley had no particular love for Baines as a person; truth be told, he’d cut Baines’s throat in a heartbeat if it served his purpose. Still, for the moment, Baines made Poley look valuable in Cecil’s eyes, and that was enough to go on with.

  Cecil cleared a space on the desk to rest his elbows. “Thank you, Poley, for deigning to join us.”

  “What’s the business, sir?” Poley said, choosing to ignore the tone.

  “Of all my agents,” Cecil said, “you and Baines are most familiar with the matter of Christopher Marlowe. I wanted your opinions, before I decide.”

  Decide. Well, that didn’t bode well for Marlowe.

  Since his exoneration, Marlowe had presented himself weekly before the Council as commanded, making up in punctuality what he sorely lacked in manners. But his reports, though honest, lacked detail. Critical details that Poley and Baines, who had tailed Marlowe since his release, made certain Cecil knew. Those second thoughts at the execution. Multiple meetings with untrustworthy strangers, including a copper-haired woman Poley had vague memori
es of from his days in Sheffield. Marlowe’s well of information dried to a trickle. April was halfway gone, and Marlowe had little to show for his months of work other than an ever-bolder Catholic threat.

  Poley reported it all, week after week, faithfully. Cecil listened with rapt attention, his reliance on Poley’s judgment rising day by day.

  “For someone meant to keep a low profile,” Baines said, “Marlowe seems to enjoy his celebrity, doesn’t he?”

  It was an anodyne place to start, but not an incorrect one, as it drew a laugh from Cecil. “His plays make him the most infamous man in London,” the spymaster said. “The commoners at the theater call him everything. Marlowe the Heretic. Marlowe the Atheist. Marlowe the Sorcerer. And then, there’s this.”

  Cecil tapped the side of his hand against the manuscript. Poley frowned and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Cecil would never have read Marlowe’s plays of his own volition. Perhaps Edmund Tilney had sent it over. The master of revels must have his work cut out trying to censor the barrage of scandal Marlowe brought to the stage.

  Cecil lifted the pages, letting them hang meaningfully in his hand. Despite his manifest distaste for the theater, his dramatic timing was faultless. “A draft of his latest,” he said. “Untouched, as yet, by the censors. The hero is a necromancer. Conjuring the devil.”

  Baines choked on nothing. “Conjuring the what?”

  “The devil,” Cecil repeated. “Onstage. Latin incantations, the whole production.”

  Poley rubbed his beard, considering. Surely the boy couldn’t be as stupid as that. Although if he was, it would certainly make Poley’s task easier.

  “I mistrust him,” Cecil said, leaning back. “Deeply.”

  Baines’s eyes lit up like a child’s. Christ, Poley thought. The queen’s finest, this, and he couldn’t hide his petty hatred of the man for thirty seconds. Poley’s own face, he knew, was smooth as glass. It helped to feel nothing. Attach yourself to nothing. Marlowe meant nothing to him, no more than Baines or Gregory or Babington or any of the others had meant anything. Men were only chess pieces, there to be moved for the greatest advantage. When your only ally was yourself, you could never be betrayed.

  “Before any action is taken,” Cecil said, “we need to be quite certain. He’s been valuable in the past. But if you can secure proof—incontrovertible proof—that he poses a danger, well, then.”

  “Then, sir?” Baines said.

  Cecil didn’t blink. “Then I will give Poley permission to take whatever course he thinks prudent.”

  Poley made no attempt to hide his smile. Ends and means, he thought as he stood up. Ends and means. He’d worked to hear those words for years. Whatever he thought best. Free rein, and trust, and no questions. It was only a step toward the final goal, but it was a momentous step, and he intended to savor it.

  “Baines and I will set to work,” he said with a bow. “We’ll keep you informed.”

  “Do so,” Cecil said to Poley. He gestured toward the door, scorning subtlety for effectiveness.

  Poley went, Baines trailing.

  The corridor outside was nearly empty. A lone servant passed, light-footed against the stone. At this late hour, candles lit the space at intervals, sending dim light dancing across their bodies. Baines and Poley shared a glance, then ducked into a small alcove near the door to Cecil’s office. They both knew enough to prevent being overheard. Men had died for smaller acts of carelessness.

  “We’ll need to do this by the book,” Baines said.

  Poley sighed. “Richard, has anyone told you you’re terribly tiresome?” He saw Baines narrow his eyes but didn’t give a damn about it. He’d just been promoted to second-in-command. Surely that allowed him a few liberties.

  “You heard His Grace. No questions, no doubts. That means the aboveboard way.”

  Aboveboard. Well. More en règle than a knife through the ribs in a dark alley, perhaps. “First things first, then,” Poley said. “You’ll need to compile—”

  “A deposition,” said Baines. “I’ll handle the formalities. The rest I leave to you.”

  Poley shook his head. This was cowardice on Baines’s part, handling the paperwork and skirting the physical responsibility, but Poley didn’t mind it. In fact, if Cecil saw Poley doing the lion’s share of the work, so much the better. A task such as this was unpleasant, but Cecil could only ask it of someone he trusted without reservation. Once he’d followed this order to its inevitable conclusion, it would be clear there was nothing Robert Poley wouldn’t do for the security of the crown. He’d prove himself devoted enough to put personal feelings aside, demonstrate his command of every covert stream of information in London. The kind of man who, years in the future, might become spymaster himself.

  Or, if he could prove his value to Cecil, perhaps sooner than that. The great man had never particularly wanted the job of spymaster—one more responsibility on his already sagging shoulders. If Poley proved he could take the whole affair in hand, what then?

  “Productive meeting, gentlemen?”

  Poley flinched. Arthur Gregory leaned against the far wall, in the fog of shadows between two candles. He pressed the sole of one foot against the stone, looking as if he’d stood there all night. Only a man without a heartbeat could have remained that silent so long. Poley narrowed his eyes, irritably bringing his pulse back down.

  “Productive enough,” Baines said.

  The unreliable illumination did nothing to make Gregory’s glare less dark. Idiot, Poley thought. Walsingham’s man through and through, he hadn’t made the slightest effort to adapt to the changing of the guard. Showed what you stood to gain, staying loyal to a ghost.

  “Eavesdropping is beneath you, Arthur,” Poley said coldly.

  “Eavesdropping is my job,” Gregory said. Poley had forgotten how tall Gregory was. Extended conferences with Cecil had lulled him into a false sense of security in his own height. “You planned this all along, didn’t you?”

  Poley looked at Gregory like a horsefly buzzing in his face. “Not in the slightest.”

  “Don’t lie to me. You’ve been tailing Marlowe for weeks.”

  “I’ve been following orders for weeks. You might try it sometime, Arthur.”

  “It’s betrayal, is what it is,” Gregory snapped.

  Poley shook his head. Arthur Gregory’s fatal mistake: loyalty. Make as many friends as you like, but don’t cling to them when they’re drowning, or they’ll pull you down, too. It would be a lie to say he didn’t take some pleasure in watching the man’s prospects dissolve around him. “You needn’t worry about a thing, if you’re possessed of so tender a conscience. Cecil’s made up his mind, and I’ve taken the matter in hand. I have people all over London willing to help me. In fact…”

  He turned his back on the pair of them. The candles stretched his shadow along the wall as he passed.

  “I think I know the perfect man.”

  Forty-Three

  “Kit,” Ned Alleyn said, and then again, louder: “Kit. The line.”

  Kit’s eyes snapped back into focus. He stood to the side of the stage while rehearsals unfurled in front of him, until now without his paying attention. What was the last speech they’d practiced? Had it been Wagner’s? Either way, they were well past that now. Ned was looking to him for a prompt, and Kit had been thinking of knives, of nooses, of the awful silence of a deserted church, and nothing of poetry.

  It had been hell enough trying to navigate his weekly probationary meetings with Cecil. He pushed Anne Cooper as far as he dared for information, well aware that her distrust in the wake of Evan’s execution was monumental. Strange was regrouping, reaching out to his contacts in the country to strategize after the disaster in the Low Countries. Kit continued deciphering the intercepted letters, but they only reiterated what Anne told him in their terse meetings: that plans would need to chang
e, that they needed to develop a more careful approach. More now than ever, Kit needed a breakthrough, a shining gem of intelligence. Without one, God knew how long Cecil would give him the benefit of the doubt.

  He and Anne met weekly in Saint Saviour Church in Bankside, an arrangement they’d begun in the aftermath of Evan Lloyd’s execution. Each meeting lasted only a few minutes, clipped questions and shorter answers. And then, last week, she hadn’t come. Kit had waited for hours, sitting in the back pew as the church gradually filled for afternoon services. It was easier that way, to let the world wash around him, as if he were only as much a part of it as the wooden pews, as the stone under his feet. In Anne’s absence, each prayer from the priest sounded like a condemnation.

  Onstage at the Rose, Ned sighed. “Figures of every adjunct to the heavens…” he repeated, beginning again the half-forgotten line.

  “And characters of signs and erring stars,” Kit said mechanically, without checking the prompt book.

  “By which the spirits are enforced to rise,” Ned said, snapping his fingers in satisfaction. He was off from there, charging forward through the scene. “Then fear not, Faustus, but be resolute…”

  Kit let his attention drift away again, to the terrible silence of Saint Saviour. It was meant to be today, his and Anne’s next rendezvous. A prophetic feeling in the pit of his stomach whispered that she wouldn’t be there, but he couldn’t go on like this, or his blood would burst his veins. He couldn’t think about poetry if there was the slightest chance she might be waiting. Not if there was anything left for him to try.

  He turned to Will, watching the scene with the rest of the actors not involved in it. Without explaining, he pushed the prompt book into Will’s surprised hands.

 

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