The Secret of the Rose

by Sarah L. Thomson

  Since words nor threats nor any other thing

  Can make you to avoid this certain ill,

  We’ll cut your throats, in your temples praying,

  Not Paris Massacre so much blood did spill.

  Paris Massacre—that was nearly the name of Master Marlowe’s new play. And across the bottom of the libel was a bold, black signature:

  Tamburlaine

  Master Alleyn, on the stage, a bloodthirsty tyrant in his red doublet with the fur trim. Another play by Master Marlowe.

  It was easier making my way out of the crowd than it had been to push in. People, eager to read the libel for themselves, made space to let me pass. I rushed back around the corner into the alley where Master Marlowe waited.

  “God’s blood, where hast thou been?” he demanded. “Thou couldst have run to St. Paul’s and back. Well, what? What does it say?”

  Stumbling, I repeated what I could remember of the rhyme. Master Marlowe grew pale as he listened. When I told him what the last lines said, and what the signature had been, he closed his eyes for a moment, looking as young and frightened as Robin.

  “They want to kill me,” he said shakily, but not as if he spoke to me. “I did not think ’twould come to this.”

  “Who?” He did not seem to hear me. “Master, what is happening? Did you write that poem?”

  “Oh, so thou thinkst so, too?” He was aware of me again, and his voice was savage. “I am the one inciting every idle apprentice and layabout beggar in London to bloody riot?”

  “’Tis a forgery,” I realized. “Someone else put the name of Tamburlaine to it.”

  “God’s teeth, of course ’tis a forgery,” he snapped. “Thinkst thou I could rhyme as ill as that, even if I tried?”

  “But someone meant—”

  “For pity’s sake, peace. Aye, someone meant everyone who saw that to think I am a bloodthirsty murder-monger. And now, if there’s a riot, who’ll be blamed?” He ran both hands through his hair, as if trying to force his thoughts back inside his skull. “I must—I must out of London. Richard. Get thee to my rooms, pack my clothes.” He put out a hand to forestall the questions he saw gathering in my face. “Now, Richard!”

  As I ran toward Master Marlowe’s lodgings, one ridiculously simple thought squirmed free from the confusion and bewilderment seething in my brain. If Master Marlowe were determined to go on a journey, at least his collar and cuffs were clean.

  Master Marlowe left London that afternoon. For the country, he said, I did not need to know where, and I was to tell anyone who asked that he had been there two weeks at the least. He tossed a handful of coins on the table for the rent and my keep, snatched up the bag I had packed with his belongings, and was gone, his heels clattering down the steps.

  There was no riot after all, though stories drifted in and out of Mistress Stavesly’s shop with the customers—a Dutchman had been killed, or had killed two Englishmen, or had only been threatened; a shop had been burned, or perhaps only plundered, the goods taken or broken. No one seemed to know which tales were true, if any, and I certainly did not dare set foot in the Dutch neighborhood to find out for myself.

  There was little for me to do. I kept Master Marlowe’s lodgings clean, and went on errands for Mistress Stavesly, and taught Moll to play simple games, winding string into patterns around our fingers. The sky was fresh and blue, the breezes sweet with spring, but to me the air in the city seemed dense and close. It pressed on my lungs, making it hard to breathe. No one else seemed to notice it, but I could not rid myself of the sense of a coming storm.

  It had nothing to do with me, I reminded myself often. Master Marlowe had warned me. I had obeyed. His troubles, his white, frightened face, were none of my affair.

  Master Marlowe had been gone perhaps a week when I saw a second libel, pasted up on the wall of a grocer’s. The shopkeeper was scraping it off, to the indignation of those who had not read it yet.

  Across the street, I hesitated. I wanted to know what the libel said, if it were another forgery set to blame Master Marlowe. But I was not far from Bishopsgate; anyone in this crowd might know me for my master’s servant. I tugged my hat down lower over my face, just as a dark-haired, thin-faced man on the edge of the crowd caught my attention. Surely I had seen him before. Then I remembered. Master Marlowe had laughed at him. A few coins to clink in thy purse and thou canst afford to cast off old friends, he’d said. What had his name been? Thomas Kyd?

  Kyd turned his back on the crowd, walking away from the scene and passing someone else I knew. My heart lightened at the sight of a tall, lanky figure with tousled yellow hair, and I hurried across the street to tug on Will’s shoulder. “Will! Did you read it?”

  “Richard!” Will turned around with a start that seemed almost guilty, clutching at the basket he carried over one arm. “Come away from this.”

  “Nay, take yourselves off!” the grocer was scolding the watchers as Will put a hand on my arm and drew me down the street. “You’ll keep my customers away. Have you no homes to go to?”

  “What did it say?” I asked Will anxiously.

  “The same as the others,” he answered.

  “Others?”

  “Aye, ’tis the third I’ve seen myself. Good that he’s taking it down. The city does not need such poison.”

  I dreaded to ask, and yet I needed to know. “Was it…signed?”

  “Nay, of course not. Who would sign such a thing as that?”

  I sighed with relief. Not “Tamburlaine,” then. Maybe these libels were not, after all, meant as an attack on my master. Maybe the mention of his plays had been coincidence, no more.

  “Leave that be!” The grocer’s angry voice rang out in the street behind us.

  We stopped and turned in surprise to see a skinny young man in a patched doublet running with a torn and ragged piece of paper in his hand. He was looking back over his shoulder at the grocer and so did not see Will and me until he had plowed straight into us, sending all three of us sprawling into the gutter.

  The stranger did not lose a moment, but scrambled to his feet again. “’Tis truth!” he shouted, waving his fragment of the libel defiantly, as if it were a weapon or a banner. “You cannot silence it!” And he took to his heels. The grocer was not inclined to chase him farther and leave his shop unattended, so he was in little danger.

  Will, on his hands and knees, was scrambling to pick up the contents of his basket before his belongings could be kicked aside or trampled into the mud. I hurried to help him and found myself holding a pair of rough wool breeches, loose at the knee, such as a sailor might wear.

  “The city’s gone mad,” Will grumbled, snatching a brimless wool cap off the cobblestones. “As though we had no troubles before the Dutch came here. As though—” He stopped, seeing what I held, and looked at me, a bit shamefaced.

  Silently I handed the breeches to him, and he stowed them away in his basket and got to his feet, helping me up as well.

  The warmth of his skin against mine seemed to spread from my hand up through my arm and shoulder and wrap itself around my heart.

  The Swallow has need of a new crew…When she sails again in the spring…

  “Now?” I asked, my voice feeble. “Your ship, is she…?”

  “Soon. A week or two. You’ll not tell my father?”

  “You know I will not.”

  “Aye. I know well.”

  “Will—,” I said helplessly. There must be some argument to convince him of the folly of what he planned. If I were wise enough, I could find the words to touch his heart and change his mind.

  “I know you do not approve, Richard,” he said. “But you’ll keep faith. I wish I could make you understand. I cannot stay.”

  I could only look at him, silent, tears stinging my eyes. I knew that if I tried to speak, my voice would betray my own secret.

  “Richard?”

  I was so tired of secrets. I was weary of things I could not tell. The pressure of all the unspoken
words in my throat came near to choking me. Suddenly I raised myself on my toes and let my lips press against the skin of his cheek, just to one side of his mouth.

  “God keep thee safe,” I whispered, and fled.

  In the moment before I turned away, I saw his hand go up to touch his face, and his eyebrows drew together in a frown—puzzled, disapproving, surprised, angry? I could not wait to see. I was running, my feet slipping on cobblestones, darting around pedestrians and horses and carts, moving quickly enough to vanish in the crowd.

  I had more or less stopped weeping by the time I’d reached Mistress Stavesly’s bakery again. “Nay, I know not,” she was saying as I tried to slip by unnoticed. “But here’s his boy; he’ll know. Richard!”

  Praying that my eyes were not red nor my face marked with tears, I turned to her. “Yes, mistress?”

  “This gentleman needs to speak with thy master,” she said, nodding at a man with kindly dark eyes beneath a red velvet hat that bore a floating white plume.

  My heart stuttered to a stop, then jerked back into life.

  “Indeed, I have important news for him,” Pooley said, formal and polite.

  “He’s left London,” I said rapidly. “Three weeks since.” It was the second time I’d lied for my master, but that did not cross my mind at the moment. I was only eager to give this man whatever answers he wanted so that he would leave.

  I saw Mistress Stavesly’s frown, and Pooley saw it, too.

  “Three weeks?” he said and looked toward her. “Did you not say he had been gone fourteen days?”

  Thou’rt a clumsy liar, Richard, my master’s voice whispered in my mind. But Mistress Stavesly was more skilled.

  “Two weeks, three, I care not,” she said indifferently. “He’s but my lodger. So long as the rent is paid, I do not mark his comings and goings. I’ve bread in the oven, if you’ll pardon me.” And she walked back to the kitchens, leaving me and Pooley alone.

  “Dost know when he’ll return?” Pooley asked me. I shook my head. Since I could not lie without tripping over my tongue, it would be best not to speak at all if I could help it.

  “Canst take a message to him?” Again I shook my head. But Pooley did not seem exasperated. He smiled at me, and with a hand on my shoulder drew me over near the staircase. He bent down, his voice for my ears only.

  “There are those who would speak with your master,” he told me. “He may hide in Kent only so long—oh, aye, I know well enough where he is.” He almost seemed amused, but then his face became serious. “I am watched; I dare not go to him myself. But he has need of a friend, dost understand? And ’twould be best if he came back of his own will. Tell him so.”

  “I know not where he is,” I protested. “He did not tell me—”

  “A loyal heart thou hast,” Pooley said with approval, and looked as if he felt sorry for me. “But thou’rt too young to be worried in this. Thy master should not have involved thee in his affairs.”

  He had not. He’d warned me. I had tried hard to know nothing.

  “Tell him what I’ve told you,” Pooley said. “For thy pains.” He laid a bright silver penny in my hand.

  “Master, please.” I held the coin out to him again. “I cannot bear your message. I do not know where Master Marlowe has gone.”

  Pooley chuckled indulgently, straightened his hat, and left me there, clutching his money tightly in my hand.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  MAY 1593

  I had no way of sending Pooley’s warning to my master, and no way of knowing if it was truly best that he should come back to London. But without my intervention, fifteen days after he had gone, Master Marlowe returned.

  I was in the bakery, helping Mistress Stavesly take loaves of bread out of the oven. The smell of them, rich and yeasty, rose around us. After the bread was safely displayed on the counter, Mistress Stavesly would cut open a loaf and give a slice each to me and Moll, spreading it with her currant jam. My mouth was watering already, thinking of that warm, soft mouthful and the tart-sweet tang of the currants.

  Master Marlowe must have stood for some time in the doorway, watching us. He did not make a sound. It was only as I turned that I caught sight of him, his face pale in contrast to his black doublet, leaning with one shoulder against the doorjamb, as if he were too tired to stand without support.

  I nearly let a loaf of bread slip off the long-handled wooden paddle I was using to slide it from the oven. I had to juggle it like an acrobat at the summer fairs, and barely managed to drop it on the table rather than the floor. Mistress Stavesly turned swiftly, her floury skirts swinging, only to stand as still as Master Marlowe. But while he seemed merely tired, she looked alert, as if she were waiting for something to happen.

  Master Marlowe smiled very slightly at my awkwardness, a twitch that stirred only one corner of his mouth. “Good day to you both,” he said quietly.

  Mistress Stavesly inclined her head, just a little. “Good day, Master Marlowe,” she said, as if she had seen him only yesterday.

  “I do not need Richard at the moment,” Master Marlowe told her. “You’re welcome to keep him, if he is of any use to you.” He did not look at me.

  Mistress Stavesly nodded. “Thank you,” she answered. “He’s a handy boy. I do find him useful.”

  “Aye, Richard knows how to make himself helpful,” Master Marlowe said, still in that strange, dull, tired voice. And that was all that passed between them. Simple, quiet, passionless words. I did not understand, then, why the air in the kitchen felt so weighted down that it seemed the dough would never rise.

  When a little later I made my way up to Master Marlowe’s rooms, I found him seated at the table, scribbling away, as if he had never been gone. I stood hesitantly in the doorway. He paused to dip the pen in the ink, looked up, and noticed me.

  “Is…is all well, Master?” I asked awkwardly. He dropped his eyes to the paper again. “I did not think to see you back so soon.”

  “Nor did I think to be here.” Carefully, deliberately, he dipped the pen deep and scored a heavy black mark through the last five or six lines he had written. “But I received an invitation that ’twas difficult to refuse.”

  I could simply go into his room, unpack his bag, and ask him nothing. That, surely, was what our arrangement called for. He had warned me not to ask, not to listen, not to know.

  And I had tried. I’d done my best to be deaf and blind. But I knew things now that I had not wanted to learn, and yet I could not forget them.

  I heard Master Marlowe’s voice in my mind: They want to kill me. I did not think ’twould come to this.

  And behind his voice was another, soft and tender as an echo: Do not trust him to keep you from having your conscience scraped clean….

  I knew my master was in danger. I knew he was in peril of his life. And it was well enough for Mistress Stavesly to ask for the rent and nothing else. She could say she knew no more of him than the coins he put into her hand each week. But I was his servant, part of his household. No one would believe that I knew nothing of his affairs. Pooley had shown me that. Any trouble Master Marlowe was in would likely fall on me as well.

  So I did not go into the bedchamber to unpack his clothes. I deliberately disobeyed him and asked a question.

  “An invitation?”

  He did not lift his eyes from the page he was writing, but he answered me.

  “Aye, an invitation. The kind a sheriff comes to deliver.”

  There are those who would speak with your master….

  “You were arrested?” I whispered.

  He nodded. “Do not look so shocked.” With a sigh, he laid down the pen and rubbed his eyes as if they ached with weariness. “’Tis over. They let me go. They will not touch me now.”

  “They?” I asked weakly. My tongue felt stiff at the roots.

  “I’ve had enough of questions for today, Richard.” He ran both hands through his hair, pulling it together at the nape of his neck. “’Tis over now, that
is all thou needst to understand. Go and unpack for me. And then take thyself to the tavern. I’m parched for some ale. Two days’ talking is thirsty work.”

  It was over, so he said. He believed it. The last time I had seen him, he had vibrated with fear like a lute string, plucked and quivering. And now he was still. He sat quietly, moved slowly. It was not quite peace. But it was no longer that jagged energy of fear that had chased him out of the city two weeks ago.

  He believed it was over. But he was wrong.

  Some days later he sent me to the market for pens and ink. I was climbing the stairs with my purchases in my basket when I heard, beyond the door, voices raised.

  This time I did not hesitate to listen. I had been climbing slowly and my shoes were soft soled. The voices did not pause when I halted my steps.

  Master Marlowe spoke first. “No. No, it cannot be. I answered every question. They released me.”

  And the second voice, smooth, soft, gentle. “Do not be such a fool, Kit. You know they can take you up again as easily as they let you go.”

  “But I had naught to do with that libel. You know it, Pooley. They know it.”

  “’Tis not the libel anymore.”

  “That accusation Kyd made? ’Tis nothing, ’tis foolishness. He was talking to save his own skin.”

  “’Tis nothing Kyd said anymore, either. Have some sense and listen!” A pause. “The libel, Kyd’s words—they were nothing but the bait. Once the hook is fairly in your jaw, they’ll reel you in and spend a few days finding out what you know. Or what you can be compelled to say. Then, if they don’t hang you, they might let you go. Perhaps you’ll even be able to walk again afterward. You know it, Kit, well enough. You know what they will do.”

  “I have friends who will speak for me,” Master Marlowe snapped.

  “For pity’s sake, Kit. Your most faithful patron just spent two years in the Tower. Think you his word has any weight these days?”

  “I will use what I know,” Master Marlowe said. It should have been a threat. But it sounded more like a plea.