by M. J. Trow
Eleanor Bull looked into his face and tutted. ‘You do look peaky, now I come to look at you properly,’ she said. She also took in the man’s clothes; she hoped Ing and Nick weren’t up to their old tricks. The last time they had tried that here the old gent in question had called the Watch and it had got very unpleasant, relatives in high places or no relatives in high places. ‘You just take yourself upstairs and rest. I’ll call when breakfast is ready and you can have a good wash. I’ll send a girl up with some hot water. She’ll wash you as well, if you want …’
Marlowe smiled wanly. ‘Just the hot water, Mistress Bull, if you don’t mind,’ he said.
‘She’s a very clean girl.’
‘I’m sure she is, but …’
‘Master Marlowe has had the shit kicked out of him,’ Skeres said, calling, as ever, a spade a spade. ‘So some nice hot water and some breakfast would just do the trick lovely.’
‘As you say, Master Skeres,’ the ordinary-keeper said and bustled away, calling for girls, hot water and porridge.
When she had gone, Frizer took Marlowe by the elbow. ‘I know the room she’ll be thinking of, Master Marlowe,’ he said. ‘Let’s get you comfy and we’ll see what she can do about your clothes. This sleeve’s a mess, look. Stiff with blood, it is. His?’
Marlowe twisted and stretched. Nothing felt other than bruised. ‘I think so.’
‘That’s one good thing. The last thing you want on a long voyage is to be bleeding all over the decks. Them sailors don’t like mess, I’ve heard. Lots of swabbing and such goes on, apparently.’
They had reached a door just off the top of the stairs. The climb had been more arduous than Marlowe had been expecting and he was grateful not to have to walk much further. Inside the room, the furniture was simple but clean and he had never seen a more inviting bed. With surprising gentleness, Frizer helped Marlowe off with his clothes. He didn’t need a mirror to see the extent of the bruises. Frizer’s face was enough.
‘What did you say to him, Master Marlowe?’ he asked. ‘What did you do? You can see the print of his boot here. You’ll be stiff by morning, and that’s a fact.’
There was a tap on the door and a girl’s voice told them there was hot water.
‘Just leave it outside,’ Frizer told her and they heard her pattens tip-tapping down the stairs. Along with the hot water there were clean towels, soft and thick, as well as lengths of linen, in case bandaging were needed. It was not for nothing that Eleanor Bull kept an Ordinary along a dock; she knew what sailors needed when they landed after a while at sea; women, drink and bandages, in that order.
Frizer was as experienced as Mistress Bull in dealing with injuries to the person and soon had Marlowe washed and dressed in a discarded nightgown of Master Bull’s, may he rest in peace. Marlowe sat on the edge of the bed, feeling the cool linen beneath him and that was all he remembered until waking up with the sun high in the sky and the smell of roasting meat coming from a room somewhere below him.
Nicholas Skeres was sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, watching Marlowe through weaselly eyes. Marlowe had stopped noticing how like a rodent Skeres’s face was but there was sudden realization in his sudden awakening.
Marlowe licked his lips and gingerly rolled onto one side. ‘Nicholas,’ he said, ‘there was no need to watch me.’
‘It’s nothing.’ Skeres got up. ‘Me and Ing didn’t like to think of you by yourself in a strange place. In case you had, you know, had a knock on the head or similar. How’re you feeling?’
Marlowe flexed his neck, straightened his arms and legs, carefully twisted his back this way and that. ‘Well, everything hurts, but it all works, so that’s the best I can hope for. Can I smell food?’
Skeres laughed. ‘Not much up with you, then. El kept luncheon late for you, seeing as you missed breakfast. I’ll let you get dressed. She’s done what she can with your clothes, she said, but you’ll need some new ones when you get to wherever you’re going. Where is that, by the way?’
‘Just travelling to travel,’ Marlowe said, enigmatically.
‘We’ll see you downstairs. One of our friends – not from the theatre, somebody you know though, I think – has dropped in. We thought we might play tables or something, fill in the time till you need to go.’
‘There’s no need,’ Marlowe said, easing himself out of bed slowly and carefully. ‘I can get down to the dock any time. The ship is there, waiting.’
‘Waiting for you, now that’s not something you hear of much,’ Skeres said. ‘Ships usually go with the tide.’
‘And this one will,’ Marlowe said, standing up and testing how his leg held his weight. Everything seemed to be working. ‘That’s why I can’t be late.’
Skeres strolled to the door. ‘See you shortly,’ he said. ‘Roast beef, it is. She’s a good cook, is El.’
‘I won’t be long.’ Marlowe eased his way gingerly into his clothes. His leg was not as painful as it had been at the time, whereas a knock he didn’t remember getting on his left elbow was so excruciating that he could hardly get his arm down his sleeve. However, taken by and large and all in all, he was in not too bad a shape.
Downstairs, the table was laid with a joint of beef, with a knife sticking in it ready for the gentlemen to carve as they liked. There were spring carrots, greens and new bread, still steaming from the oven. Ale was frothing in a jug and Marlowe had a pang of pre-emptive homesickness. He had heard that the food in Scotland couldn’t hold a candle to that in England; he wasn’t a glutton by any means, but what he liked he liked a lot. And this food was just what he liked.
Eleanor Bull had even had the foresight to put a cushion on a chair for him. She stood at the head of the table, her hands folded in front of a snowy apron wrapped around her pleasant girth.
‘Enjoy your luncheon, Master Marlowe,’ she said and smiled. ‘Your sleep did you good, I can see. You look twice the man you did when you got here.’
‘Thank you, Mistress Bull,’ Marlowe said, sitting down gratefully. He carved off a chunk of beef which was just the way he liked it, crispy on the outside and red in the middle. With a chunk of bread and some pickled vegetables, it was a meal fit for a king. He had taken one grateful mouthful when he heard the front door go and the sound of voices in the hall. Frizer and Skeres he recognized at once; their nasal whines had been in his ears off and on for years now and were unmistakeable. But the other he didn’t know – he looked up and the food turned to dust and ashes in his mouth.
The newcomer smiled at Eleanor Bull and then at Marlowe. ‘Good afternoon everyone,’ Robert Poley said.
FIFTEEN
‘It’s been a long time, Master Marlowe, hasn’t it?’ Robert Poley pulled out a chair opposite the playwright and leaned his elbows on the table. ‘I seem to remember the last time we met, you promised to kill me if you saw me again.’
Marlowe picked up his knife and carved off a piece of bread. ‘I never break a promise,’ he said. ‘You’ve probably heard that about me.’
‘That and much else,’ Poley said. ‘You’re quite infamous in the circles I inhabit, as you probably know.’
‘That depends on the circles,’ Marlowe said, thrusting the knife deep into the meat and leaving it quivering there.
Skeres and Frizer sat one each end of the table and watched the men, as they would watch boxers at the fair. The only difference on this occasion was that there was no way of placing a bet, though neither man would have liked to guess how the match might go.
Poley smiled, thin-lipped and unconvincing. ‘You know my circles, Master Marlowe. We are the same, you and I.’
Marlowe laughed. ‘I had almost decided to break my promise, Master Poley,’ he said, ‘but say that again and I might change my mind. We are not and never could be the same. I have killed men, yes, but never in the dark and with a stab in the back. Anyone I have killed went to the other place of their belief with my face etched on their eyes. Can you say the same?’
Poley sh
rugged. ‘That may be so, Kit … may I call you Kit?’
‘No.’
‘That may be so, then, Master Marlowe. But your dead are no more alive than mine. And I believe, if we had been keeping score, yours might be the higher number.’
Marlowe hacked off some more bread and chewed it slowly, making everyone wait. ‘That could be true,’ he said. ‘But this isn’t about a tally of dead men, is it, Master Poley? It’s about whether and when and how I kill you.’ He smiled around the table. ‘Today may be your lucky day, however. I have decided on a change in how I live my life. This ducking and looking behind me all the time is wearing. I’m not yet thirty and yet some mornings I feel as old as the world. I need some fresh air, some fresh faces, some fresh voices. And so tonight, on the evening tide, I will go in search of all three.’
‘Congratulations on that, Master Marlowe,’ Poley said. ‘Mistress Bull!’ he called over his shoulder and the woman appeared in the blink of an eye. ‘Oh, there you are. I thought you were further away than that. Bring some Rhenish. We need to toast Master Marlowe’s journey with more than ale.’
The ordinary-keeper looked from one man to the other. ‘How many goblets shall I bring?’ she asked. She had had enough blood spilled in her house through arguments over the bill and forewarned was forearmed in her opinion.
Poley laughed. ‘Four,’ he said. ‘My good friends Masters Skeres and Frizer are of the party. Oh, and could you get someone to set up the tables board? We need to amuse Master Marlowe until the tide and talk of mutual friends may not be appropriate.’ He looked around. ‘Tables?’ Skeres and Frizer nodded. They liked a good game of tables. They had some handy ways to ensure they won, though probably using them against Robert Poley would be a certain way to get a one-way passage to Hell. Marlowe shrugged. He had never had much time for games in his life, but tables was better than quoits by a country mile in his opinion.
‘I’ll set up the back room,’ Eleanor Bull said. ‘Give me a few moments and it will be ready. Perhaps you would like the Rhenish in there too?’ She liked to remind people she came from good stock. Putting a fine wine on a table with a joint of beef and pickles was not something her cousin Burghley would countenance, she was sure.
Marlowe looked up from finishing his meal. ‘That would be lovely, Mistress Bull,’ he smiled. ‘And thank you for an excellent luncheon. I needed that.’
Eleanor Bull left the room and scurried to the kitchen. She wouldn’t have been prepared to piss in Robert Poley’s pocket if his pizzle was afire, but that Master Marlowe – what a lovely smile he had! And those curls! ‘Quickly,’ she said to her serving girl. ‘Rhenish and the tables in the best room. Quick, now.’ The girl jumped up. It wasn’t hard work at Mistress Bull’s ordinary, but sometimes, when her mistress used that tone, it was best to obey. As she scurried from the room, Mistress Bull called her back.
‘Oh, and Abigail?’
‘Yes?’ The girl waited for more instructions.
Eleanor Bull had come over all maternal. She worried about poor Master Marlowe. She knew he knew her cousin Burghley from what Master Skeres had said when he came to arrange the events of today and she wanted to be spoken well of to her relation. She had yet to receive an invitation to his table, but knew that now it could surely only be a matter of time. ‘Pull the couch over to the tables board. Master Marlowe has not been well and may be more comfortable lying down.’
The girl turned to go, rolling her eyes to Heaven. There might not be much to do as a rule, but when there was, there was too much! Pull out the couch? Had the old besom no idea. It weighed a ton and she knew the dust under it would shame the Devil. She would pull the tables up to the couch instead; that would be easier, though it might be a bit awkward for the gentleman when it came to getting up. But they could sort something out. She wasn’t an ox that she could go moving heavy furniture around by herself, after all.
Mistress Bull herself saw to clearing the table. The gentlemen had made a good luncheon. She was pleased about that. She didn’t run her ordinary to become rich. In fact mostly, she only just broke even. But she did love the gentlemen coming and going, she loved it more when they told her what a wonderful table she kept. She stood beaming in the doorway as they filed out, on their way to a friendly afternoon of tables.
‘Thank you, El,’ Skeres said, leading the way.
‘Yes, thank you, El,’ Frizer said, adding a smack on her rear, which she seemed to dislike less than Marlowe would have expected. ‘Nice joint of beef.’
She simpered. ‘I’ll pack you some to take home, Ing,’ she murmured.
‘Lovely,’ Frizer said, leaning in with a leer. ‘Just the beef, or a little something to go with it?’
‘Oh!’ she shrieked. ‘Master Frizer, you are a one!’
Poley simply stalked past her. Marlowe stopped and took her hand. ‘You’re very kind, Mistress Bull,’ he said. ‘How much do I owe you?’
‘We’ll sort all that out when you go and catch your tide,’ Poley said over his shoulder. ‘Don’t worry about that now. We’ll probably broach another few bottles before then.’
The room which Skeres led them to was clearly normally used as a private parlour. The walls were simple whitewash but clean and fresh. The floor was pitch pine boards, covered before the fire with a hand-woven rug. The fireplace was cold in the warm spring weather and Mistress Bull had put a jug of dried grasses in the hearth to make it look less bleak. Under the window, a couch caught the breeze coming in from the garden, along with the smell of lilac and early roses. The tables board was set up in front of it, with the counters neatly stacked ready for play. On the side trestle opposite the door was a bottle of Rhenish with the cork newly drawn and some goblets. A dish of newly shucked hazelnuts, the last from the previous season, was set out alongside some dried apricots.
Frizer looked at the nuts and fruit and made a rueful grimace. ‘She’s making a bit of an effort, Nick,’ he said, concerned. ‘You don’t think she’s been taking me seriously, do you?’
Skeres laughed. ‘It’s not for you,’ he said. ‘It’s for Master Marlowe. She’s taken a bit of a shine.’
‘No reason to worry about why,’ Poley said, shovelling a handful of nuts into his mouth. ‘It all goes down the same way. Now,’ he turned to the board. ‘What’s it to be, gentlemen? A groat a point?’
Skeres screwed up his face. ‘We’re just poor walking gentlemen, Master Poley,’ he said. ‘We can’t afford that.’
‘Unemployed walking gentlemen, Nick,’ Frizer said. ‘Don’t forget the unemployed bit.’
‘True,’ Poley said. ‘Let’s play for the game, then. We’ll keep a tally and settle up at the end. Losers pay the winner … what shall we say? Ten groats each?’
Skeres and Frizer looked at each other. That seemed reasonable. They had no intention of winning – beating Robert Poley at anything never ended well – but ten groats each wouldn’t hurt.
‘Agreed,’ Frizer said. ‘Shall we cast lots on who goes first?’ He smiled at Marlowe. ‘Perhaps we could draw straws, Kit, eh? Like the old days at the Rose?’ He surprised himself when his voice broke on the words. His days as a walking gentleman had begun as a means to an end, but now that they themselves were ended, he felt an unaccustomed feeling in the pit of his stomach. Any other man would have recognized it as sadness, regret and loss.
Marlowe lay down on the couch, resting his damaged elbow on the cushions. ‘I don’t mind going second,’ he said. ‘Let Master Poley play one of you two first and then I’ll play the winner. Does that sound like a good idea?’
‘A kind of knockout tournament,’ Poley said. ‘That sounds like a better idea than simply taking turns. Nick, I’ll play you first. Ingram, you sit there,’ he pulled a chair in front of the couch, ‘and you and Master Marlowe can watch for fair play.’ He laughed, a mirthless sound in that rat-trap mouth. ‘I don’t trust either of you two further than I could toss that couch with Master Marlowe on it.’
The men arranged themsel
ves to play and watch as was their station and soon the only sound was the rattle of the bone dice and the hiss of Skeres’s breath when Poley made a particularly good move, which was almost every time. Marlowe lay at his ease, secretly amused at Frizer’s discomfiture as his friend made a mess of almost every turn. For a man of his proclivities, surely he had accepted from the first that it wasn’t a good idea to beat Robert Poley? He may as well have handed over the ten groats first as last and not bothered with the game at all. Marlowe intended to give as good as he got but these men had more to lose than some money. Unlike Marlowe, they would have to live in London with Robert Poley for a while yet.
The sun was warm on the back of Marlowe’s head and the bird song was soft in his ear. A blackbird was warbling what he would swear was a quatrain by Tallis, from long ago when he was just a boy singing in innocence in the cathedral at Canterbury, the high notes going straight to a God he no longer believed in. Under the birdsong was a hissing noise, like running water going over rocks. Marlowe could almost feel the cool kiss of the Stour on his hot skin. Then, a noise which was not part of his past woke him from his reverie. It was the sound of a chair being thrown back and it was followed by the scrape of three daggers being drawn in perfect harmony. His eyes flew open and he looked up into three tight faces.
‘Well, Kit,’ Ingram Frizer said, pointing his blade, ‘what are you going to do now?’
AUTHORS’ NOTE
According to the historical record, Christopher Marlowe, playwright, poet and ‘university wit’ was stabbed to death in an Ordinary, an eating house belonging to Eleanor Bull, on Deptford Green on the evening of 30 May 1593.
The next day, a sixteen-man jury heard evidence before the royal coroner, Sir William Danby, to explain how Marlowe died. The inquest, long forgotten and written almost entirely in Latin, was rediscovered by researchers centuries later and it raises more questions than it answers. This record claims that Marlowe arrived at Eleanor Bull’s at about ten in the morning and spent the day drinking and walking in the garden in the company of three men – Robert Poley, Ingram Frizer and Nicholas Skeres. They played tables (backgammon) and after supper, a quarrel broke out between Frizer and Marlowe, ostensibly over who was going to pay the bill – ‘the reckoning’ – for the day’s hospitality. Frizer was carrying a dagger in a sheath in the small of his back and Marlowe was lying behind him on the bed. Given to bursts of temper as Marlowe was reputed to be, he grabbed Frizer’s dagger and hit him around the head with the hilt. The two men fought and it ended with Frizer’s dagger being plunged into Marlowe’s right eye socket. Death was almost certainly instantaneous.