by M. J. Trow
The crowd roared their delight as the grim little procession reached Castle Hill. One of Scambler’s officials carried a huge crucifix at its head. Faunt found this a little Papist, but he realized that the Bishop was making a point. The clerics, in their black and white ambled alongside. In the centre, flanked by guards in the city’s livery, their halberds flashing in the sun, came Francis Kett himself. He had aged years in the weeks since Faunt had seen him last. The blond beard was wild and streaked with grey, like brambles in hoar frost. His face was bruised and bloody and his hands were bound in front of him with rough hemp that cut and tore at his skin. His sackcloth robe was white with the spittle of the Godly and all kinds of offal and excrement covered his hair and shoulders.
In front of the Bishop, the procession halted and the drums beat a tattoo, sharp, loud, as if to bring an end to the journey and the life of Francis Kett. The man did his best to smile through broken teeth. ‘Good morning, Master Scambler,’ he croaked.
‘You will address me as Lord Bishop, blasphemer!’ Scambler snapped as his horse shifted under his weight, lashing its tail and stamping a hoof on the cobbles.
‘Lord Bishop,’ Kett half-bowed, as far as his ropes would let him and Scambler raised a gloved hand.
‘May the Lord in whom you do not believe have mercy upon you!’ he shouted and two of Kett’s guards suddenly dragged the beaten man sideways. He didn’t struggle, but let them bind his hands behind his back, around the oak stake and tie his ankles at the base.
At another signal from the Bishop, they lit the torches that crackled and sparked in the sunshine. When they met the brushwood, the smoke billowed black and white, eclipsing for a moment the motte, the keep and Francis Kett himself. The crowd roared their delight, cheering wildly as each new brand caught fire and the sparks flew upward, sending sooty specks into the cloudless blue.
Suddenly, there was a shriek from the woman nearest the pyre. Kett’s legs had all but gone but he was still alive and the fire had burned through the ropes around his wrists. His hands jerked upwards, raised, as if to Heaven and he yelled, time and time again, ‘Praise be to God. Praise be to God,’ and he was still screaming that, leaping and dancing in the flames, as the fire finally took him and he died.
The Bishop nodded, a grim smile on his face. ‘He recanted,’ he said and looked at Walsingham’s man sitting his horse beside him. ‘You heard him. He recanted.’
Faunt looked the Bishop in the face. ‘I hope so, your Grace,’ he said. ‘I hope that was the sound of a guilty man finding his God again rather than the sound of an innocent one calling out what he really believed all along.’ He touched his feathered cap and turned his horse’s head. It was a long ride back to London and he needed to get the stench of this morning’s work out of his nostrils.
The two brothers walked at a cracking pace through the alleys and bye-ways of cobbled Canterbury, along Mercery Lane and through the Christchurch Gate, leading to the side door of the cathedral as though pulled by strings. Marlowe’s feet found every indentation of the cobbles awakening memories he had thought forgotten but which were just buried deep inside him and as they approached the weathered stone wall that cut them off from the sun, he was humming under his breath the tenor line of his last piece he had sung as a treble in the choir stalls there.
‘If you love me,’ Thomas came in on cue, ‘keep my commandments.’
‘You know it?’ Marlowe was delighted. It had always been his favourite piece and Master Bull had allowed him to choose his own swansong. It was all William Byrd in London these days, but the elder Marley was a Thomas Tallis man through and through.
‘Of course,’ Thomas said with a nod, and gave the beat again. ‘If you love me –’ his young voice reverberated off the ancient stone of the cloisters, making him his own counterpoint – ‘keep my commandments, and I will …’
To Marlowe’s amusement, the boy nodded him in at the right place. With a smile, he came in, ‘And I will pray to the Father.’
The brothers beat time for a bar and heard in their heads the absent altos and basses. Then, with another nod, Thomas was back. ‘And He shall …’ Nod.
‘And He shall give you another Comforter.’
So engrossed were they in the toils of Master Tallis that they arrived, still singing, at the choir stalls and almost walked into the back of Master Goodwin, the organist and choirmaster, who was studiously ignoring the interruption.
Coming down from the heights of harmony, Thomas scuttled, head down, into his place and Marlowe bowed to the choirmaster.
‘My apologies,’ he said. ‘My brother and I got rather carried away.’
‘Your brother? So you are Kit Marley.’ The choirmaster’s eyes were sparkling now with mischief. ‘Come with me.’ And he took the playwright’s ornate sleeve and led him down the stalls, moving boys out of his way by means of his conductor’s staff. Finally, he found the space he wanted and pointed. In the flickering candlelight from the choir’s sconces, Marlowe could read, although he didn’t need to, the words carved deep in the dark oak. He glanced up at the choirmaster.
‘I understood that that was to be erased,’ he said, sheepishly. He hoped his brother never sat in this stall; the graffiti was a little scurrilous.
‘I’m keeping it,’ the choirmaster said. ‘I am hoping it will be worth money one day, if you get any more famous. Now, would you like to sit in? Gentlemen,’ he raised his voice at the decani tenors, ‘would you like to shuffle along a little. Master Marley –’ he looked at the playwright – ‘or is it strictly Marlowe these days?’
‘If I may insist,’ Marlowe said, modestly.
‘Master Marlowe is joining us for practice. Tell me, Master Marlowe, have you kept in practice?’
‘I only sing for my own pleasure these days, Master Goodwin,’ he said.
‘We sing for the pleasure of the Lord, of course,’ the man said, piously. ‘But no one says we can’t enjoy it too. Take your place, Master Marlowe.’ The choirmaster banged his staff on the floor. ‘Since Master Marley and Master Marlowe are in good voice, perhaps they can lead us in If you love me. Master Marley, if you please … one, two, three, four, and …’
‘If you love me,’ the clear voice of Thomas Marley rose to the rafters in the service of the Lord.
THREE
The brothers had barely turned the corner on their way to the cathedral and did not hear the scream ring out. But everybody at the Bull Stake did. Katherine raised her head like a deer at a watering hole who senses danger but her husband, the city constable for this year of his Lord 1589, carried on eating without a sign that he had heard anything. For all he had complained about the manchet bread for breakfast, he seemed to be enjoying it, especially when spread with new butter a finger thick.
Anne raised her head too. ‘Mother?’ she said. ‘Was that a scream?’ Anne was always ready to panic and run around making a bad situation worse, so her mother flapped her apron at her.
‘Calm down, Annie,’ she said, wondering as she did so how many times she had had to say that in her life. Too many, she would wager. ‘I don’t suppose it is anything that need bother us. Just Mistress Benchkyne finding another rat in the wash-house, I expect.’
But the scream went on, wavering in pitch and intensity, as the screamer drew the occasional snatched breath, but definitely intended to attract more attention than would be warranted by the finding of even the biggest rat.
Dorothy spoke to her father. She was always the one who stepped out of the line, who was prepared to risk his wrath. ‘Papa,’ she said. ‘Someone is screaming.’
He lifted his head briefly and nodded. ‘So they are. Pass me that last piece of bread, will you, Dot? It is expensive enough, in all conscience. It needs eating up or it will go to waste.’
Katherine Marley, who had not yet breakfasted and was hoping to pick up everyone else’s leavings, turned away with a sigh.
‘But … Papa,’ Dorothy persisted. ‘People don’t scream like that unless …
’
This time she had her father’s attention, to the extent of a quick slap around the head. The tears started into her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. The women of John Marley’s house knew that tears only had one reward, something he called ‘something to cry about’.
Before he could raise his hand again, there was a hammering at the door and voices raised in cacophonous yelling, suddenly cut short. Then, one voice came and John Marley could enjoy his breakfast no longer.
‘Constable Marley! Come quick. There’s terrible murder been done. Mistress Benchkyne is dead!’
Sighing, the shoemaker pushed his chair back from the table and rose to go. ‘She’ll have fainted at one of those rats,’ he said. ‘But I suppose I should see what’s what.’
The little maid had finally wrestled with the bolts and had opened the door on to the street. The family could hear her asking who was wanting to see the master, but she was batted aside and a tousled-looking man strode into the room.
‘Are you deaf, John Marley?’ he said testily, nodding briefly to Katherine who was standing in the kitchen doorway, her girls around her. ‘If you didn’t hear the screaming, you could have heard me knocking.’
‘Just breaking my fast, Master Grijs,’ he said. ‘What is so urgent?’
The man looked at the white, soft crumbs which littered the board. ‘Manchet bread?’ he said. ‘Perhaps we pay our constables too much, Master Marley.’
Katherine leaned forward. ‘Our Kit is home, Master Grijs,’ she said. ‘We thought we’d—’
‘London ways!’ John Marley spat. ‘He’ll be gone ere long, it is to be hoped. But what about the screaming? You say somebody’s dead? Mistress Benchkyne? She’s no age.’
‘No, indeed. But being beaten around the head is no respecter of age, Master Constable,’ Grijs thought it necessary to point out.
‘Beaten …? No, she’ll have fallen in a faint, like she always does when she sees vermin in the wash-house. Mad as a tree, that one.’
Grijs was not usually a patient man, but he was fond of Katherine Marley. In fact, back in Dover in the old days he had courted her until the cobbler had come along and for some reason, had swept her off her feet. Looking at him now, hose half-undone, unshaven and with butter and honey smearing his cheeks, it was hard to say why. But for Katherine, he kept his temper in check. ‘If she fell, John –’ he decided to take the more friendly approach to get this lazy man to do his duty – ‘she got up again and fell again, over and over until she was dead.’
John Marley stood like an ox in the furrow and slowly laced his hose and shrugged on his jerkin. ‘I’ll come and see her, Master Grijs,’ he said, ‘but by the time I get there, she’ll be sitting up and rubbing her sore head, I’ll be bound.’
Grijs hung back as Marley made for the door and spoke quietly to Katherine. ‘If she is sitting up, then Hell will have opened here in Canterbury, for she is as dead as a nit, Kat … my pardon, Mistress Marley. Find some of the women and come to Mistress Benchkyne’s house. It won’t be pretty, I warn you; only come if your stomach is strong.’ And with another nod, he turned on his heel and followed the cobbler.
Choir practice over, the Marley boys were making their way back home. To Kit, something didn’t seem quite right. People were standing at street corners, muttering, whispering, looking in the direction of Water Lane.
‘What’s the trouble here?’ he asked an old man he vaguely recognized.
‘There’s a woman done to death,’ the man mumbled, ‘cruelly violated in her bed.’
‘Go home, Tom,’ Marlowe said. ‘I must see to this.’
‘No fear,’ Tom said. ‘Papa’s the constable. He’ll be there already.’
They followed the drifting locals in their ones and twos, weaving past them and muttering their ‘excuse mes’. The houses along Water Lane were the same as all the rest in the city, old and tired, their timbers dry, their plaster dusty and peeling. They almost leant against each other in the morning’s heat. And the sun was high already.
There was quite a crowd at the gate that led into the Benchkynes’ garden and Marlowe’s heart sank. His mother had been a maid to old Katherine Benchkyne soon after her family moved from Dover and he remembered being dandled on the old lady’s knee when he was still in his hanging sleeves. He remembered her too, sitting in the great cathedral as he sang the Agnus, with tears trickling down her face. The old lady had died four years ago, the last time Marlowe had come to Canterbury and he had signed her will and read it out to the interested parties because old Katherine Benchkyne would not have a lawyer across her threshold.
John Marley stood in the doorway, the cool dark of the passage behind him. He stopped his eldest son with a hand on his arm. ‘Nothing to see here,’ he growled.
‘A woman is dead,’ Marlowe said. ‘Violated in her bed, I’ve just heard.’
Marley squinted into the sun. ‘You heard wrong,’ he snapped. ‘She just fell and hit her head, that’s all. I’ll get her laid out and sent to the charnel house. Master Grijs,’ he called to the man who had called on him. ‘See if you can find a vicar, in this town that’s full of ’em …’
‘No vicar,’ Marlowe said. ‘Not yet,’ and he pushed past his father into the darkness.
‘I’m the constable here!’ John Marley barked, spinning on his heel and striding after his son.
‘Then act like one!’ Marlowe flashed back, turning at the end of the passage. ‘Get those people out of there.’ He looked across at the bed and the corpse lying on it. ‘A woman has been murdered here.’
John Marley was furious. He half-raised his staff of office, scowling and grating his teeth, then he relented and stormed out into the garden, bellowing orders left and right and scattering the crowd.
Jane Benchkyne was lying on her back, her arms spread wide, her feet apart. Her mouth hung open and her sightless eyes were transfixed on the ceiling, as though she had found a cobweb and the sight appalled her. Marlowe felt her neck. She was cold. He lifted her right hand and it flopped back on to the mattress. No stiffness of death yet. She had been dead, he guessed, about six hours. That would make it perhaps four of the clock when someone had shattered her skull. The attack had come from the front, delivered quickly and savagely; three, perhaps four blows, it was difficult to tell under the mass of blood that was clotted and matted in her hair.
He heard a stifled sob and spun round, instantly regretting that his dagger was back home.
‘Who’s there?’
A frail girl emerged from the corner where the shadows had hidden her. She was perhaps sixteen, pale and with eyes wide with terror. ‘It’s only me, sir.’ She tried to bob a curtsy but her balance was off and she gave up, lip quivering.
‘Who are you?’ he asked kindly, knowing the look of abject shock when he saw it.
‘Please, sir, I’m Alice, Mistress Benchkyne’s maid.’
‘Did you find her?’ Marlowe asked. If she was First Finder, she would have to appear in court and face the wrath of the magistrate. But the magistrate was Roger Manwood. Terror of the night prowler he may be, but he had daughters of his own, not much older than this girl. And he was a fool for a pretty face.
‘Yes, sir.’ He could barely hear her.
‘You screamed.’ It was a statement, not a question, but he remembered it as he and Tom were crossing Mercery Lane. Screams in London were ten-a-groat, where the smock alleys ran dark and the river rushed, taking all manner of dead and dying things into its cold embrace. But Canterbury was God’s own city. This sort of thing didn’t happen here.
‘Did I?’ Alice asked. She couldn’t remember.
‘Is this how you found her?’ Marlowe asked.
She nodded.
‘Do you live here, Alice?’
‘No, sir. I live at home. In the parish of St Mildred.’
That was the far side of the city.
‘And when did you get here this morning?’
‘I don’t rightly know, sir,’ she said. ‘I
heard the bell calling … at the cathedral.’
That would be Great Harry, summoning the faithful – and Kit Marlowe – to choir practice. He looked around the room. There was blood, a great deal of blood, on the pillow under the dead woman’s head and spatters of it on the bedhead and the post-curtains. A mat had been rucked up and chairs were overturned. Cupboard doors had been thrown open and pewter plates scattered over the floor, along with cups and flagons.
Marlowe reached out a hand, careful, slow, and took the girl’s arm, leading her gently out of the room into the passage. John Marley was grumbling to some gentleman just outside but Marlowe couldn’t see who it was. Tom was standing off to the left, trying to peer into the house itself, as ghoulish, when it came down to it, as the rest of Canterbury that John Marley had just scattered. Marlowe helped Alice into a chair and said gently, ‘I want you to stay here, Alice; I shan’t be long.’ And he made for the stairs.
He knew this house well because its rear garden backed on to the Marley house around the corner. A high stone wall separated them, too high for even the Marley boys to climb, but little Kit had been in and out of the Benchkyne house all his life. He knew the cold damp of the scullery, the sound of the rats in the wainscoting, the chirrup of the baby swallows in their nests in the eaves. He knew the lavender in the knot garden, the rosemary and the rue, slips of which had taken root outside his own back door and flourished like the green bay tree. The Marleys had not always had a garden, because there had been times when life was hard and the family would move quickly, at dead of night, flitting from one temporary shelter to another. The tower of Great Harry had watched them go, as it watched over all of Canterbury, keeping a stern eye on its children.
But the house in Water Lane was a constant. It never changed. It was old and solid and safe. Until today. Today it was a slaughterhouse. He ducked his head as he entered old Jane Benchkyne’s room. It was empty. Not a bed, not a curtain, not a stick of furniture. The cupboards were empty. He tried the next room, the one with the chimney breast where the crucifix had been fastened before the world turned upside down and the Pope had become Bishop of Rome. The nail marks were still there on the mouldy plaster, but again there was no bed and no furniture. He tried the last room in the house and found it deserted. The spiders ruled here, defying Alice’s broom and daring her to clear them out, once and for all. And every time she did, they built their sticky palaces again that floated in the breeze and glistened in the sun, specked with flies long dead and the dust of the dying house.