A Fine Madness

by Alan Judd

  I remembered what Christopher said after the death of William Bradley in the Hog Lane affray. A whole world dies when a man dies, he said. What a world died with Christopher. Yet death is not an event, he also said. Nothing happens, just a ceasing. Nothing to fear, therefore, and nothing to come. Well, he would know now whether that was right. Or rather, if he knew anything at all he would know he was wrong.

  The carp turned in the moat, great fat creatures, their fins breaking the surface. To keep Frizer talking I had to appear sympathetic. ‘He had a temper, no doubt about it. He was known for it.’

  ‘Ever up for a fight, was Kit. Little tyke. He won’t be fighting now, that’s for sure. Unless with the Devil.’

  ‘He was always fighting the Devil. What provoked it this time? Why did he attack you?’

  He kicked a stone into the water and sat watching the ripples. ‘Fourpence, that’s all. Wouldn’t believe it, would you? Fourpence.’

  ‘The reckoning?’

  ‘Whose share was what. We argued over it. Robert – Robert Poley – said we should split it between the four of us, the taking of the room and the victuals. Kit said he’d pay his share of the victuals but not the room because he’d had nothing to do with it, which was true in a way. Robert had taken the room to meet me and Nicholas Skeres, for business. Kit came along because he had to report to the Council at Greenwich on these Ralegh matters, which was just down the road, and also he had some – some business ideas of his own. So I said do your Council stuff early and come and join us. Which is what he did. So he argued he only owed for his share of the victuals. Said it really angry, as if we’d been arguing about it, which we hadn’t. He had a point, I doubt Robert would have pushed it. Anyway, knowing what a mean bugger he always was, I said over my shoulder that he was so tight we could hear his arse squeak. Next thing I knew he was bashing me about the head. I only meant in jest, really. Though he was tight. It was all over before it started, so far as I was concerned. Just shows, you never know.’

  There was no hint of remorse in his tone or expression, though his last few words sounded thoughtful.

  ‘So he contributed to the business of the meeting, then? He wasn’t just there for food and drink?’

  ‘He did, he did. That’s why Poley said equal shares for all because Kit would have shared the proceeds if – you know, if it had all gone ahead.’

  ‘If what had gone ahead?’

  I had tried to sound as if I wasn’t greatly interested but he was immediately defensive. ‘Nothing much, future plans, that’s all.’

  ‘Ten in the morning until six in the evening is a long time to discuss nothing much.’

  ‘Not where property’s concerned. Always complicated, property matters. And Widow Bull does a good spread. Looks after her gentlemen. Good food and good drink. Makes it hard to leave.’ He turned to me with a grin.

  ‘Property matters’ could mean everything or nothing, from great estates to bundles of kindling. It came out in court later that Frizer and Skeres were at that time plucking the feathers of a naive young heir, Drew Woodleff. They lent him money in return for a bond repayable by sale of commodities that they controlled and which would never make anything like the sum owing, leaving him potentially forfeiting his property. That was their usual game.

  But it was very unlikely that this was what they met to discuss that day. Small beer for Poley, who sought to benefit from great affairs of state, while Christopher, I hope and still believe, would disdain such cozenage, even as cover for meeting. When he was freed from gaol following the Bradley affray he spoke of the many victims of such deceits he had met there, all imprisoned for debt as I am now. Some went mad or hanged themselves with the new moon. I can understand that.

  On the other hand, Christopher admitted that it was in gaol that he learned about coining. That might have been what they were discussing, a grand coining fraud overseas as alleged in the Flushing business. Christopher could plausibly have contributed his knowledge and it would have been good reason to get himself into the meeting. But it was clear I wasn’t going to get much more out of Frizer that day. The rack would doubtless have yielded an answer but from what Sir Robert had said there was no question of official proceedings.

  My talk with Frizer was ended by Sir Thomas’s return from hunting, so I had no chance to smoke out anything about what Poley was up to. He probably wouldn’t have told me, anyway, even if he knew. I got in a mention of the Earl of Essex, asking if Skeres was still in his service. Frizer shrugged. ‘Far as I know.’

  ‘Fortunate for him.’

  ‘Long as it lasts.’

  Sir Thomas greeted me kindly and invited me to stay, though he was clearly going to be busy entertaining his huntsmen and would have no time for private discussion. I gave him the letters I carried and asked whether I might visit him again to discuss Christopher and his poetry. ‘Most certainly,’ he said earnestly, gripping my hand. ‘He is much missed here. I – myself – I miss him badly.’

  Although we spoke again later that day we did not discuss Christopher. Nor did I question Frizer any further. As for Sir Robert’s worry about Poley and Frizer being poached by Essex, I doubted it from the first. But it was not in my interest to say so until I had completed and been paid for my investigation. It was not that I thought the Earl of Essex too honourable to plot in this manner, nor because I doubted that he would recruit Poley to his cause if he could. No, it was because I thought him incapable.

  The whole thing was too subtle for him. If he had been capable of such subtlety he would not have gone about town rejoicing openly when Ralegh was disgraced for marrying Elizabeth Throgmorton, one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, without permission. The Queen banned them both from Court and they had to remove themselves to Devon. By rejoicing so openly Essex made himself look stupid. I expect, sir, that you know the story of his bursting in upon the Queen while she was dressing, an unforgiveable presumption? And how afterwards he mocked her aged appearance before his courtiers? That showed him to be as ill-mannered as he was crass. It is also said that in exasperation he once turned his back on her at Court, his hand on the hilt of his sword. That alone was enough for his death warrant, without his later allowing his supporters to shout against the Queen in the streets and briefly even to take up arms. He thought he had the woman in the palm of his hand, but he reckoned not with the monarch. No, sir, this was not a man who could plot and scheme as Robert Cecil – who certainly could – feared.

  Yes, it is true that there were some who said after the event that Ralegh himself contrived Christopher’s death for fear that he might tell the Council of Ralegh’s own free-thinking and heresies. But that was even greater nonsense, to my mind. I have been at the heart of many secrets and plots, as you know, great plots with great consequences. I know how hard it is to bring off a plot successfully, how many have to be involved and how difficult are timing and coordination. It is fantastical to think that Ralegh could have engineered such a thing from Devonshire, even had he wanted to. He was a leader and a philosopher, maybe a heretic, but he was no plotter. What of all the others who were involved with him? Would he have had to murder them too when they were investigated?

  I next saw Nicholas Skeres. Frizer was a rough diamond but with him you at least knew what you were getting. With Skeres you never knew where he stood because he was forever shifting according to where he thought you stood. He was a man without qualities, a chameleon who took on the shapes and colours of whomever he was with but whose one consistency was the relentless pursuit of his own advantage. He was like Poley but shallower and more obvious, lacking Poley’s charm. He was lucky to survive Essex’s eventual downfall, though as I think I’ve said already he spent much of the rest of his life in prison for his cozening.

  Since we had no natural way of meeting – because of the way my earlier work for Lord Essex had ended I was reluctant to remind him or his circle of my existence – it took time to devise an encounter. Eventually I contrived to run into him on the s
treet after one of his court appearances. I feigned delight and surprise, which should have alerted him since we were never close. He seemed preoccupied and distracted and I took advantage of his state to offer him sustenance in an inn. He was never one to refuse free fodder.

  For a while we discussed mutual acquaintances and the progress of the case against him, which of course I agreed was monstrously unjust and unreasonable. I compared it with a former and equally monstrous case against both him and Frizer which I knew about. Having mentioned Frizer, I was then able to ask after him.

  ‘He does well enough for himself,’ he said with a hint of resentment. ‘He manages properties for Thomas Walsingham and his wife. He is trusted with the rents.’ He rubbed his forrid with the back of his hand, a regular habit.

  More than you would be, I thought. ‘He did well to come out of the Kit Marlowe affair with no stain upon him.’

  His pale blue eyes looked out at me from beneath his hand. ‘He deserved to, it was not his fault. Marlowe fell upon him of a sudden.’

  ‘Why? What provoked it?’

  ‘The reckoning. They argued about the reckoning.’

  ‘Is that all? Nothing else?’

  ‘It was enough. Marlowe was close with money.’

  ‘I had heard there was something else, some disagreement.’

  He shrugged. ‘They goaded each other. They always did.’

  ‘But Frizer had invited him that day, had he not?’

  ‘So far as I know. I didn’t know he would be there. They came from Scadbury where they stayed with Thomas Walsingham. I came from London.’

  ‘What was it about, the meeting?’

  Until that point he had answered carelessly, as if the whole episode was of little concern and he was weary of it. But now the vacancy of his pale eyes became a deliberate, sullen blankness. ‘Property matters.’

  ‘I didn’t know Marlowe had an interest in property. He didn’t own any, did he?’

  ‘He could’ve if he hadn’t lost his temper.’

  ‘That was ever his fault.’ We sat in silence. I sensed that he was about to leave, having had his fill. ‘Of course, he was reporting to the Court at this time, wasn’t he? An investigation into heresies?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘He was associated with Sir Walter Ralegh, I heard.’

  ‘Maybe.’ He shrugged. ‘There wasn’t much blood. Considering it killed him, there wasn’t much.’

  ‘Frizer must’ve stabbed hard.’

  ‘He didn’t stab at all. He grabbed his arm and Marlowe’s momentum carried him onto the knife.’

  ‘The blade was pointing backwards at him, was it?’

  ‘Couldn’t see clearly from where I was. But it must’ve been because he was pommelling him. It was over so quickly, over before it started.’

  ‘There was bad blood between them, wasn’t there? Ingram and Marlowe?’

  ‘They niggled each other, as I said. Marlowe especially. He had a way of getting under Ingram’s skin. Walsingham kept the peace.’

  ‘What was it that got under Marlowe’s skin that day?’

  ‘Didn’t like hearing the truth about himself.’

  ‘Which was?’

  The blankness returned to his eyes. ‘What d’you want to know for? He’s dead. It was self-defence, no question about it, the law says. His own fault. What’s your interest?’

  ‘He was a friend, I liked him.’

  ‘No one else misses him. Cocky bastard.’ He yawned.

  I offered more ale but he was tired, he said, had had enough talk for one day. We parted with the simulacrum of fellowship, never to meet again. That would have troubled neither of us, had we known it.

  Robert Poley was another matter but I didn’t have to seek him out: he came to me, knocking on the door of our house in Leadenhall Street one morning. It was my late father’s house, Mary’s being then let to another play-maker and poet who shared it with a doctor. Poley was smiling and breezy, an honest man of the world going cheerfully about his business. We sat at my table with ale, bread and cheese. He asked what I did to keep body and soul together. I had actually been doing a small piece of French deciphering for Sir Robert but couldn’t talk about that so I talked about the family business I had inherited, the collection of duties on behalf of the custom house. It was flourishing although hard to keep track of it all, even with Mary’s help. In the past my secret work had been a great distraction and I knew the business owed the Queen considerable sums going back to my father’s time, but it was a problem to estimate them. With some of the money I had enlarged my lands in Yorkshire and Essex, intending to pay what I owed from the earnings, but that had not always proved possible. Also, I never had payment for my work for Mr Secretary, only occasional favours, as was the custom then. It was a great favour that he had secured for me a pension from the Queen of 100 guineas a year for delivering Babington.

  Poley broke his bread and cheese into little pieces – he had few teeth left – and asked how the collection of duties worked. He obviously had some scheme afoot, since I had never known him so amiable, but I knew better than to ask. If he wanted me to know he would tell me; if he didn’t he would mislead me, no matter how I asked.

  Eventually, he said, ‘You must wonder why I ask these questions, Thomas.’

  ‘You have your eye on a similar position for yourself?’

  ‘No, but I wonder whether the money you collect could be put to better use, whether it could be made to work harder.’

  ‘For me?’

  ‘For us both.’

  The scheme he outlined showed he was not above coney-catching provided the rewards were big enough. Not that he personally was involved in luring coneys into debt. That was done by what he called business associates, in other words Frizer and Skeres and others unknown. He sought funds to buy the lands and houses of victims forced to sell at knock-down prices in order to relieve the debts he had led them into. It was not quite usury so far as the law was concerned for they were not charged interest, which had a legal limit of 10 per cent. Rather, in return for a promissory note they were offered whatever sum they needed in the form of a commodity. In the case of the young man Woodleff, whom Frizer and Skeres were skinning, the commodity was guns or great iron pieces which he was told he could then sell to raise the money to pay his debt. When he came to sell, however, he would find no buyers except those who had led him into debt. They would offer a much lower price and then demand repayment in full of the promissory note. Unable to find this, his entire property would be forfeit. His kindly creditors would then offer to bail him out at a fraction of its value.

  ‘We have a long list of properties,’ Poley explained, ‘which we can buy cheap and sell dear, sharing the proceeds. But we need more money than we have in order to buy even at our cheap rate. The duties you collect could be used to buy them before you pass them on to the Crown. Then we sell them, repay you and you pass on your duties and keep your share of the profit. You gain and the Queen loses nothing.’

  That was very like what I was trying to do anyway, albeit on my own behalf and without luring foolish young men into debt. And I was becoming well aware of the drawbacks, of the difficulty of selling or letting for the sums I had anticipated or in the time permitted. I anticipated trouble with Lord Burghley, the Lord Treasurer, about this so it was not hard to say no to Poley.

  But I didn’t say no straight away. I tried to sound as if I were considering it. ‘Is this what you were planning with Kit Marlowe when he lost his temper with Frizer that day in Deptford?’

  He shook his head, frowning. ‘That was a Dutch scheme. Property scheme. Didn’t come off. Could still, I suppose, but Marlowe had good contacts there, or said he had. Don’t have any yourself, do you?’

  ‘I don’t, but I know he had a bit of trouble there not long before. I’m surprised he considered going back.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have had to. Coining he was done for, wasn’t he? Nearly. That could be done here as well as there
, so long as you’ve got the wherewithal and you grease the right palms for getting it over there.’

  ‘So coining was what it was about, your meeting?’

  Poley didn’t like repeated direct questions. ‘That and other matters.’

  If he’d been on the rack I’d have asked much more but Robert Poley was never put anywhere near the rack himself, though he saw that a few were sent to it. ‘I never thought Christopher Marlowe was serious about coining.’

  ‘Don’t know that he was, really. It was just a step towards alchemy for him.’

  ‘Alchemy?’

  ‘You know, turning base metal into gold. He was writing about it in one of his plays, he said, about a man who thought he’d found the secret. All bollocks, if you ask me, but he wanted to have a go, or find someone who could.’

  ‘That wasn’t why Frizer invited him along, surely?’

  ‘He had to be in Greenwich anyway, to report the Court.’

  That was a typical Poley answer, the truth but not the whole truth. But he had implicitly conceded that the invitation was Frizer’s. ‘That was a funny business, that free-thinking investigation,’ I continued. ‘Where did it all come from?’

  He shook his head again, this time grinning. ‘You must know about that. You sit on the Dutch Church libel commission. You know very well where it came from.’

  There was almost nothing that man didn’t know. ‘Not from us, not from the commission. We’d cleared him. Whoever did it quoted from his plays, true enough, but it wasn’t him. But someone was pursuing him for free-thinking.’ I paused to see if he volunteered anything. ‘Is it someone after Ralegh? Could he be the real target? Has anyone from Essex’s circle been sniffing around?’