“’Twas your faith in what you know that brought you to this pass,” Pooley said regretfully. “It did not save Watson, and ’twill not save you. I warned thee, Kit. I warned thee not to cross the hunchback.” Pooley sounded like a grieved father and, like a father, used the tender “thou.” “Why wouldst thou not listen to me?”
“I have done good service,” Master Marlowe said, more weakly still. “How many Catholic plots have I told him of? How many priests did I deliver to him?”
“And think you that matters now?” Pooley sighed. “A playmaker, a cobbler’s son, and you dared to match wits with the hunchback. Did you forget what you are? Men like us, common men, we serve their turn and are lucky if we keep our skins whole.”
“I’ll give him the letter,” Master Marlowe offered. Suddenly all his defiance was gone, melted like hot wax. “I’ll give it to him, Pooley. You’ll tell him for me.”
“’Tis not just the letter,” Pooley answered gently. “Thou hast offended him, Kit. One of his own spies with the nerve to leave his service? To threaten him? ’Tis very ill, I will not hide it from thee.”
There was a long silence. When at last Master Marlowe spoke again, he sounded like a guilty child.
“What shall I do, Robin?”
“There is one chance.” Pooley sounded businesslike now. “You cannot stay in London, under his nose. He’ll see it as defiance.”
“I’ll go back to Canterbury,” Master Marlowe offered eagerly.
“Think you his arm does not reach so far as Canterbury? No, Kit, you must leave the country, and soon. Waste no time. Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Master Marlowe sounded dazed. “I cannot get a passage so quickly.”
“I know a ship. I can arrange it,” Pooley said briskly. “The captain has carried passengers for me before. He’ll ask no questions. Tomorrow, Kit. I’ll come for you in the morning. Bring the letter with you. When you’re gone, I’ll take it to the hunchback. Once he has it in his hands, and you far away, he may let the matter rest. Trust me, Kit. ’Twill be for the best.”
I heard the legs of the stool scrape across the floor, and realized that the conference was at an end. Swiftly and silently, I crept back down the stairs and waited outside, well hidden around a corner of the house, until I saw Pooley leave.
If Master Marlowe wondered at the time I had taken fetching his pens and ink, he did not mention it to me. In fact, he barely spoke to me that day.
My master was not an atheist, I thought as I lay under the blankets that night. He was not a witch or a conjuror. He was certainly not a secret Catholic.
He was a spy.
An intelligencer. A listener to other men’s secrets. The eyes and ears that reported dangers to the men who worked for the queen. Dangers like secret Catholics. Like my father, my brother. Like me.
But he knew. He knew what I was; he had known it for months. And I was not in prison, nor was Robin. If he knew, why had he not accused us? Why were we still free?
And tomorrow he would be gone. Well, good riddance to him. Informer, telltale, vulture. Telling the world that Catholics were bloodthirsty murderers, our knives whetted for Protestant throats, when all the while he was the one betraying his neighbors to the prison, the rope, the rack.
But he had not so betrayed me.
I spent that night in a state of bitter confusion, and it was no better in the morning. Master Marlowe did not seem surprised that I asked no questions as I packed his belongings once again, his extra shirts, his old doublet, a spare pair of breeches, the tinderbox, his razor and comb and scissors. Carefully I rolled up the manuscript of the new play and tied it with cord. Ink and pens and penknife went into a small wooden case that locked shut to keep them safe. All of Master Marlowe’s life, it seemed, fit neatly into a leather satchel that he could carry over one shoulder.
“All prepared, then, Kit?” Pooley was standing in the open doorway.
“In a moment,” Master Marlowe said quietly. He seemed unsurprised, though Pooley must have come up the stairs as quietly as a cat stalking a mouse. “Wait for me outside, I pray. I will not be long.”
There was something in his manner that made me think of the knight who had appeared at the playhouse when The Massacre at Paris had first been performed. And Pooley seemed to feel it, too, for he turned obediently and made his way downstairs, for all the world as if Master Marlowe, a playmaker, a cobbler’s son, had the right to give him orders and to be obeyed.
Master Marlowe had his sword at his side. He wore the same magnificent black doublet he was wearing when I saw him first, the gilt buttons shining like small moons. But his face above it was worn and white, as if his sleep had been hagridden for many nights. It was not a face that went with his rich man’s clothes.
Out of a purse at his belt he drew a handful of coins and laid them on the table. “Pay Mistress Stavesly the rent for this week,” he said quietly. And then another handful rang softly as he laid them beside the first. “A quarter’s wages for thee. I am sorry to break our contract, but I must go.”
I nodded, but I couldn’t keep my eyes from widening. I had not expected such generosity from him.
“And here.” From inside his doublet he drew a folded piece of paper. “Keep this for me, until I am well gone.”
My eyes fell on a dark brown stain, the size of a shilling, on the top right corner of the paper.
“No!” I flinched back, as if the letter were contaminated with plague. “No, master, please, do not ask me.”
“’Sblood, take it,” Master Marlowe said, suddenly angry. He took a step toward me. “Take it and do not read it. If all goes well and I get safely away, burn it unopened. If not, I will return for it. ’Twill do thee no harm.”
How could he say so? I was fairly sure that this letter had been the cause of Tom Watson’s death. Master Marlowe must flee the country because of it. And now he would hand it to me?
“I will not touch it!” I said, more sharply than I had ever dared to speak to him. But he had broken our contract. He was my master no longer. Aware that ears might be listening, I lowered my voice and hissed at him, “You told me to close my eyes, stop my ears, and forget all I heard. I have done it. I’ll have no part of your spy’s business!”
In the hush that followed my words, I heard the floorboards creak under Master Marlowe’s feet. I heard Mistress Stavesly, downstairs, call out, “Moll!” I heard a laden cart clatter its way over the street outside.
“Bright lad,” Master Marlowe said at last. “Dost know so much? Then dost know this—what I am facing?” He did not move toward me, but I felt as if he had, his eyes were so fierce on my face. “Dost know what the rack will do to a man? How it will take every bone from its socket? They put a stone under the spine, to make it worse. Or perhaps they will only hang me by my wrists and leave me until my own weight pulls my joints apart.”
I was silenced, but I still shook my head when he held the letter out again toward me.
“Do not cross me.” There was a clear warning in his voice. “Thou’rt not so safe thyself. A young Catholic, a worm at the heart of the state, a plotter and contriver. I could tell them of thee.”
Anger had stiffened my spine, but now fear weakened me again. “Master, please,” I whispered, searching his face for a hint of pity and finding none.
“Oh, I could tell them. A Catholic traitor, dressed in boy’s clothing, blasphemous and shameless. Who knows what other secrets she may be hiding? She may be a spy for Spain, or for Rome. She may even be a witch.”
He laughed harshly at the look on my face.
“Didst take me for a fool? Didst think I would not notice that my servant boy had a cheek smooth as an apple and a voice that never cracked? When I see boys in women’s skirts every day, didst think a baggage in breeches could hoodwink me?” Now he did take a step toward me, holding the letter as a thief might hold a knife. “Mind well. They’ll only lock thee up for a papist. But they’ll burn thee alive for a witch.”
&nb
sp; It was not true. He was only trying to frighten me. The law would punish me, if they found out I was disguised. But they would not burn me, just for my breeches…would they?
I had moved away from him, and the wall was at my back. I felt as if I were pinned there. The force of his threats seemed to fill up the room.
I remembered something he had said on the day I met him.
“You said the devil walks like a man,” I choked out. “You said he gets souls by whispering.” And sweet saints, it was true. I had thought my brother and I were only doing what we must to save our lives. I had thought there was no sin in that. But it was possible to pay too high a price for safety.
Faustus had traded his soul to the devil in return for pleasure and riches. What had I traded to this man when I promised to brush his clothes, carry his messages, and keep his secrets? I should have gone to prison alongside my father before I’d accepted his help. I should have starved on the streets of London. But now it was too late to repent.
They’ll burn thee alive for a witch. I knew I did not have the courage to face what the law might do to me if Master Marlowe betrayed me. With the taste of my cowardice sour in my mouth, I held out a hand for the letter.
But Master Marlowe did not hand it to me. He looked stricken. And suddenly his rage, that had seemed to push all the air into the corners of the room, was gone. I felt as if we had both shrunk to half our former size.
“Oh, well played.” He said it lightly, but he closed his eyes briefly as he spoke, as if he were mortally wounded. “Who taught thee to turn a man’s own words against him?”
I only stared in confusion.
“When I said that, I did not think of myself….” He shook his head. “Pardon, Richard—no. What is thy name?”
“Rosalind,” I said shakily.
“Thy pardon, Rosalind. I would not—” He sighed. “I will not betray thee. ’Twas my fear speaking. All that blood spilled on the stage to hide the fact that I am a coward at last.” As if he were too tired to stand, he sank down on the stool beside the table and looked up at me beseechingly. “I will only ask thee, beg thee, take the letter. I dare not destroy it yet. I must trust this man, ’tis my only hope, but he may not…That letter may well be my only safety.” He shuddered. “I cannot face it, what they will do to me. ’Tis wrong to bring thee into this, I know. But I have no other recourse. I do not ask it of thy love, but only of thy pity. If nothing else, that letter may buy me a quick death.”
Changeable as March wind. He had threatened me with exposure and death, but he had saved me from beggary. Just now, he may as well have held a knife to my throat. But he had comforted me on the day I learned my father was dead.
Now he asked for my pity. And he held my secret like an eggshell in the palm of his hand.
I did pity him. I could not help it, seeing the fear that shook him. Even so, I could not forget the power he had over me. Changeable as March wind. He had said he would not force the letter on me, that he would not betray me. But that did not blot out what he could do to me, to Robin, if he changed his mind.
I held out a hand that trembled only slightly.
To my surprise, Master Marlowe did not simply give the letter to me. Instead, he slipped from his stool and in one quick movement was kneeling at my feet. He placed the letter between my fingers and then, as if I were the queen herself, he lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it gently. And when he spoke to me again, he did not use the “thou” a master uses to his servant. For the first time, he called me “you,” as if I were his equal.
“You were to redeem me, Rich—Rosalind. Did you know that? I thought, two young papists, no threat to England. So many as I have betrayed, these two perhaps I can save.” He rose to his feet. “It seems I have no talent for redemption. If you hear nothing of me by tomorrow, burn that letter. And ’twill all be at an end.”
He picked up the leather bag, slung it over his shoulder, and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MAY 1593
The day went past with no word, and when I woke from an uneasy sleep the next morning, I felt the sharpest edge of my fear beginning to melt away. Surely Master Marlowe was safely on board a ship by now, out of sight of England’s shore. Which meant that I could strike a spark and set fire to the letter, and be free of all the toils and tangles of my old master and his secrets.
Strike a spark—aye, there was the problem. Master Marlowe, naturally, had taken the tinderbox with him, so there was no flint and steel in the room. No matter. There were always coals in Mistress Stavesly’s oven. I dressed myself quickly, winding the linen bands around my breasts once more and noticing that lately I had been forced to tie the knot closer to the end of the worn cloth. Was it possible that I was not going to be a feather, a sprite, for all of my life?
It was not the moment, however, to worry about it. I fished the letter out from under the edge of my pallet, where I had hidden it next to my rosary while I slept. Yesterday I had cut a slit in the lining of my doublet. I slipped the letter into this pocket, tucked the rosary back into its bag around my neck, and hurried down the stairs.
Mistress Stavesly was already in the kitchen, tying her long white apron around her waist. Dismay clutched at my heart. I could not burn the letter before her.
“Ah, Richard.” If she wondered why I was stirring so early, she gave no sign of it. “Just the lad I need. Run to the market for me. I’ve much to do, and I need a pot of honey and a dozen eggs. Moll will only get cheated if I send her. Go on, lad, and I’ll give thee something to break thy fast when thou returnst.”
My mouth opened, but I could put no words to my objection. What excuse did I have to refuse to run her errand, so kind as she had always been to me? The letter had been safe enough for all of yesterday, tucked inside my doublet. Another hour could make no difference. And then I would take a moment when her back was turned, or I would find flint and steel myself, and the letter would be no more.
But when I came back, with fresh eggs and a crock of honey in my basket, Mistress Stavesly was not so busy as she had claimed to be. She was sitting quietly on a stool, with her floury hands resting in her lap.
I set the basket down on a table. “Mistress Stavesly?”
There was something on the floor at her feet. Master Marlowe’s leather satchel.
“Oh, Richard.” Were there tears in her eyes? “Ill news, I am afraid.”
“He has returned?” I couldn’t take my eyes off the satchel, slouched there on the tile floor. He had not gotten safely away after all. He had not slipped free of the trap.
“No, that he has not.” She sighed. “I am sorry, Richard. Thy master is dead.”
A constable had come while I was gone, bringing word and Master Marlowe’s things. I listened dully to the story she told, of a meal in a victualling house, a quarrel over the reckoning. Master Marlowe had, it seemed, argued with a companion over who was to pay the bill. He’d snatched the man’s dagger to slash at him and, in the struggle, gotten the knife in his own eye. So the constable had told Mistress Stavesly, and so she now told me.
“There will be a trial, of course, but ’tis self-defense, no doubt on’t.” She shook her head. “Far too young. ’Tis always the young ones who die so. Perhaps you must grow old, and see how little life you have left, before you learn to value it. ’Tis a young man’s trick, to throw away his life over a few pence.”
Whatever Master Marlowe had thrown his life away over, I was sure it had not been a penny or two for a meal. I must trust this man, ’tis my only hope, he had said. His hope and his trust had been false.
“He was a strange one,” Mistress Stavesly said mournfully. “You could never be sure if he was speaking in jest. But he had a kind heart in the end, had he not, Richard?”
A kind heart? He had saved my life and my brother’s, only to drag me into peril when it suited him. I could not say if this meant he had a kind heart in the end. Still, kind or cruel, angry or
gentle, threatening or pleading, he had been alive. Changeable as March wind. Now that restless energy, that sharp tongue, that quick mind, were forever still.
“Mistress Stavesly!” I said abruptly. “The rooms—he left me money to pay this week’s rent. May I stay out the time?”
She looked oddly at me. Perhaps she thought me heartless.
“Aye, Richard, of course thou mayst stay the week.” A customer appeared at the window, and she rose to sell him the loaf he wanted.
I snatched the satchel and ran up the stairs. A corner of the letter nudged my ribs through my shirt and the lining of my doublet. The tinderbox was in the satchel; I had packed it there myself. One spark and this would be over. Frantic to put an end to this letter that had caused two men’s deaths, I yanked the door to Master Marlowe’s lodgings open, only to stop a step or two into the room.
My pallet had been slashed open with a knife, and the stuffing littered the floor. The blanket had been thrown aside. Through the door into Master Marlowe’s bedchamber, I could see that his mattress had been treated the same way, heaved off the rope webbing that supported it and slit from seam to seam. The lid of his chest had been thrown open, but there had been little left inside it to dump out. The box Mistress Stavesly had given me to store my few belongings had been overturned, my nightshirt and cloak tossed aside, my store of coins tossed across the floor.
That was not the worst of it, however.
Pooley stood by the bookshelf, looking over one of the books that Master Marlowe had left behind. He carefully thumbed through to the last page, held the book by the spine and shook it, then shrugged and dropped it on the floor by his feet. Only then did he turn and smile at me.
“Shut the door, boy. No need to disturb those below,” he said pleasantly.
My knees had locked. Master Marlowe’s satchel slipped out of my hand to the floor. Pooley wore his dark red hat, with the white plume nodding gracefully. The velvet glowed ruby in a shaft of light from the window. It seemed as if the shadow it cast over his face should be bloodred.
The Secret of the Rose Page 17