Eleventh Hour

by M. J. Trow

  Marlowe nodded.

  ‘Where’s Master Robert’s writ?’ Topcliffe asked, suddenly suspicious.

  Marlowe laughed, an odd sound in this corner of the Tower, where the sun rarely shone. ‘Come, come, Master Topcliffe, you and I have been in this business too long to worry about such niceties. Writs lead men to the rack, paper hangs them. I am mindful of Babington and his crew.’

  ‘Point taken.’ The rack-master lit his tobacco, his eyes watering briefly as the smoke filled them. ‘But you must appreciate I will need something.’

  ‘My word?’ Marlowe offered.

  Topcliffe laughed. This was a less odd sound, because he often did that in the deepest bowels of the building. He was a man who enjoyed his work. ‘The word of a projectioner? You’ll have to do a great deal better than that, Master Marlowe.’

  ‘You drive a hard bargain, rack-master,’ Marlowe sighed and reached inside his doublet. He passed the parchment to Topcliffe, who took it, read it and frowned.

  ‘This is a deed,’ he said, ‘for the Rose Theatre and Bear Pit, Southwark.’

  ‘I could provide you with the house receipts,’ Marlowe said. ‘Philip Henslowe is richer than God. All that could be yours.’

  ‘In exchange for one Papist?’ Topcliffe screwed his face up.

  ‘One alleged Papist,’ Marlowe corrected him.

  ‘What’s he to you that you should offer me half of Southwark?’

  ‘To me, nothing, but the man’s a stage manager, Henslowe’s right hand. He couldn’t function without him.’

  Topcliffe tapped the tempting offer on the palm of his left hand. He put the pipe down. ‘Plays,’ he said, ‘are the invention of the Devil. I hope you don’t go to the theatre, Marlowe.’

  ‘Never crossed the portals of one,’ Marlowe said, cheerily.

  ‘So, no,’ Topcliffe passed the bill back. ‘No deal.’

  Marlowe sighed. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I tried. Here.’ He passed the rack-master a second piece of paper. Topcliffe read it, noted the Cecil crest, the motto, the spidery handwriting, the signature.

  ‘If you had this all along, why all the other nonsense?’ he asked.

  Marlowe smiled. ‘Let me shake your hand, sir,’ he said.

  Topcliffe took it.

  ‘I am proud to make the acquaintance of a true patriot.’

  Topcliffe guffawed suddenly, letting Marlowe’s hand go. ‘This was a test, wasn’t it? To see what my price might be.’

  Marlowe nodded. ‘We all have our thirty pieces of silver,’ he said. ‘Sir Robert wanted to be sure.’

  ‘He did?’

  Marlowe shrugged. ‘Clearly, he couldn’t tell you. He’s a new broom, man, sweeping out the frowsty corners of Walsingham’s regime. He’s got to know who he can trust. That’s where I come in. Testing the waters, so to speak. He’ll be pleased to hear you’re as pure as the driven snow … er, I’m not mixing too many metaphors for you, am I? Now, Sledd …’

  ‘Ah, yes, the stage manager. He’s a feisty little shit and no mistake. I had to teach him a few manners this morning.’

  ‘Yes.’ Marlowe nodded understandingly. ‘Not a morning person, Henslowe tells me. Why was he rounded up, exactly?’

  ‘All part of Sir Robert’s master plan. Hound the bastards out, smash the priest holes, light the bonfires. I’ll do the rest. But you knew that, surely. New broom and all that?’

  ‘Ah, Master Topcliffe, you and I are merely cogs in the machine, aren’t we? The little ratchets that operate your rack. He tells you one thing, me another. Keeps us guessing. Sir Francis did the same.’

  ‘He did,’ Topcliffe said, nodding. ‘I miss him already. Can you keep a secret, Marlowe?’

  ‘Was Nicholas Udall a pederast?’

  ‘All right, then,’ Topcliffe nodded. ‘Between you and me.’ He leaned forward, careful not to let the pipe set his beard alight. ‘That’s why Cecil’s sending his heavies hither and yon. He wants to know who killed Walsingham.’

  ‘You think Walsingham was murdered?’ Marlowe feigned innocence.

  ‘Don’t you?’ Topcliffe spread his arms. ‘Oh, if he was a prelate or a lawyer or even a doctor of physic, I’d say, yes, it was his time and God called him. But he was a Privy Councillor, by God, and the Queen’s Spymaster. Such men don’t just die in their beds. Any more than you will, Marlowe. Any more than I will.’

  ‘So what does Cecil intend to do? Arrest half of London?’

  ‘All of London if he has to. He knows how many Papists still lurk in this great country of ours. He has lists – I’ve seen them. Men, women, even children. This is a war, Marlowe, you know that. The King of Spain has put a price on the Queen’s head, has sent an Armada against us. We must be firm. We must be resolute.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Marlowe said solemnly. ‘But … Sledd.’

  ‘Yes. There are bound to be some mistakes along the way. Gilbert!’

  A thickset oaf clattered into the yard and tugged his forelock.

  ‘Thomas Sledd,’ Topcliffe said. ‘Cell Eight. Bring him here.’

  ‘I’m not sure he can walk, sir.’

  ‘Drag him, then. I know nothing about the theatre, Marlowe. Can stage managers still function flat on their backs?’

  ‘We’ll have to see.’ Marlowe’s smile was tight. Depending on how Tom Sledd looked, he could still slide his dagger blade across the rack-master’s throat. They’d cheer that in Rome and Douai more loudly than they cheered the death of Walsingham.

  ‘A cup of wine,’ Topcliffe suggested, ‘while we wait.’

  ‘Delighted,’ Marlowe said. Drinking with this sadist turned his stomach, but needs must or Tom Sledd would never see the sky again. It was two cups later that Gilbert dragged a shambling wreck into the yard.

  ‘K …’ Sledd tried to say something when he saw Marlowe.

  The projectioner was faster and slapped him hard across the face. Weak as he was with Topcliffe’s ministrations of the morning, Sledd almost fell over. ‘Speak when you’re spoken to, sirrah!’ Marlowe snapped. ‘You may not be a Papist, but you work in one of their Hell-holes. I have instructions to cure you of that.’ He pushed Sledd roughly ahead of him and passed the empty cup to Topcliffe. ‘It’s been an education, Master Topcliffe,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Glad to have been of service,’ the rack-master beamed and watched as Marlowe kicked the stumbling, silent Sledd ahead of him. When they had gone, he refilled his pipe and took up the curved blade he had been sharpening. ‘Gilbert,’ he murmured out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Take yourself on a little ride. Get to Hatfield and crave an audience with Sir Robert Cecil. Tell him I’ve just had a visit from Marlowe the playwright and he’s sprung one Thomas Sledd using forged papers. Do that for me, there’s a good fellow.’

  Meg Sledd was used to seeing very little of her husband, depending on the state of the play of the moment and so she hadn’t been worried when he didn’t come home the night before. When the play was newly in rehearsals, she hardly saw him. When it was newly in production, she hardly saw him. When it was nearly at the end of the run and the next one was in read-through, she hardly saw him. But the bits in between – they were heaven. She ran to her Tom, giving him her shoulder to lean on and, although she was an inferior crutch to Marlowe and Sledd had to take most of his weight himself, he put his arm around her shoulder and let her lead him away.

  Marlowe felt a little superfluous but stayed where he was, just inside the door of the Sledds’ little house on Bankside. They had carefully chosen where to live, with Sledd wanting to be within sight of his beloved Rose and Meg wanting somewhere where they could forget about the theatre, just once in a while. Bankside had seemed an obvious choice and, allowing for the fact that the river mud only smelled like an ill-kept charnel house at the very lowest of tides, it was a charming little place. Meg had made it nice, with pieces of green glazed pottery from her mother’s kitchen to make her feel at home and chairs pulled up to the fire. On this late spring morning, the fire was low,
just enough to boil the pot for the baby’s gruel and for the soup which bubbled forever on the back hook. Meg had made this house a home and Marlowe looked around with something akin to regret. This and more could be his, should be his, but something in him had always kept him from committing to anyone; his heart, his soul would always be in love with words. There was no room for anyone else. But still …

  A screech broke the fire-ticking silence and Marlowe spun round. What was it? Was it Meg? Had Tom breathed his last, in the little truckle bed in the back room? He was still deciding which way to run when the screech came again, but this time from over his head. And this time, it ended in a gurgle of laughter. Marlowe’s heart descended from his mouth and he sagged into a chair. He had forgotten. The Sledds were now three – baby Olympia was making her presence felt upstairs. Marlowe was proud that Tom and Meg had chosen a name from Tamburlaine for the child, but would never know the fights they had had over it. Little Olympia, when in later years she jibbed at her name, would have to be grateful that her mother had overturned her father’s first choice of Zenocrate.

  Marlowe popped his head around the door into the scullery, where Tom Sledd lay in the small bed in the alcove which actually belonged to their little maid of all work, who was watching with big eyes from near to the back door.

  ‘I think Olympia …’ he said, pointing behind him.

  ‘Yes,’ Meg snapped, all efficiency in her worry. ‘Go and see to her, Amy, do. Her crying is disturbing her father, can’t you see?’

  It was hard to see what Tom Sledd might be thinking. His face was a mass of cuts and bruises and both eyes were closed now. Meg was carefully sponging away the worst of the caked blood, but it was a slow process. Marlowe had checked his fingers and limbs as they had made their careful way from the Tower and he was as sure as he could be that nothing was broken. Careful mother that she was, she had a cupboard full of tinctures and unguents, to soothe whatever part of Olympia might be causing problems. Marlowe moved nearer to the bed and was almost overcome with the stench.

  ‘Meg?’ he said. ‘What is that?’

  She looked up and smiled. ‘I’ve got used to the smell.’ She gave the sponge a sniff. ‘It’s very simple; my mother used it on all of us when we were little. It’s some vinegar, some rosemary, some … do you know, I can’t remember everything that’s in it. I know there is some clarified lard in there somewhere. Some arsenic.’ She saw Marlowe’s horrified expression. ‘Not much. Just a pinch in a big batch. It’s good for the skin.’

  Marlowe looked a little askance at the cupboard full of bottles and boxes. ‘Does everything you have in there contain poison?’ he asked.

  ‘Poison?’ She was horrified. ‘There isn’t enough poison in there to kill a mouse! A little arsenic here, a little belladonna there, but nothing dangerous, Master Marlowe.’ She was high on her dignity. ‘I have Olympia to think of.’

  ‘Of course, Meg. I didn’t mean to imply …’ Marlowe shook himself free of the thought. ‘I was … elsewhere.’ He leaned nearer, ignoring the smell. Yes, she was right – there was definitely lard in there somewhere. ‘Tom?’

  The man on the bed turned his head infinitesimally towards him.

  ‘Tom, I have to go now. I know you are in the safest hands. I’ll go to the Rose, tell them you are … at home.’ He couldn’t bring himself to say that the man was well. He was a liar by trade, but not by inclination. ‘Don’t worry.’

  This time, Sledd rolled his head from side to side and the slits of his eyes glittered.

  ‘That’s easy for you to say,’ Meg said, testily. ‘But I know you mean well. If you go, he will calm down. Don’t let any of those mumming idiots come round bothering him.’ Sledd made some incoherent noises and she turned to him sharply. ‘Yes, I daresay,’ she said. She had honed her ear on Olympia’s prattle and could find words in any mumble. ‘I daresay the play’s the thing, but not for you, it’s not. Not today or tomorrow.’ She looked at Marlowe. ‘Tell them I’ll let them know.’

  ‘Wine, Sir Robert?’ Richard Topcliffe was at his most obsequious when confronted with raw power. For good, for ill, the Cecils ruled England now and it was as well to rise within the orbit of the stars.

  ‘It is a little early for me, Richard,’ the diminutive Spymaster looked up at the sharp angles of the Tower’s parapets, but no sun shone there.

  ‘Of course, of course. Thank you for coming so promptly.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘My man, Gilbert … He must have made good time in getting to Hatfield.’

  ‘He may indeed,’ Cecil said, sitting down uninvited. ‘But I was at Whitehall last night.’

  ‘Oh.’ Topcliffe was momentarily thrown. ‘So you’re not here about Marlowe?’

  Cecil looked at him oddly. ‘In a roundabout way, I am. You’ve got two prisoners here – er … Skeres and Frizer. Fetch them.’

  ‘At once, Sir Robert.’ And he was gone.

  Cecil had never enquired too deeply into the mechanics of murder. Walsingham had set the wheels of the Queen’s justice in motion and Topcliffe kept them assiduously oiled. The Queen’s imp took the opportunity of the rack-master’s absence to acquaint himself with the tools of his trade. The great iron loop that was Skeffington’s gyves rested on a wooden frame in the corner of this room, where many a Papist had screamed his last and told all sorts of lies just to make the pain stop. The gyves were adjusted with a set of ratchets that tightened, crushing a man’s lungs and snapping his ribs. There were blades without number around the room, lying glistening with oil in soft, clean straw, ready for the day. Cecil tried on an iron glove and noticed the screws at the side which, in Topcliffe’s experienced hands, would reduce the Spymaster’s fingers to bloody pulp. But it was the rack that had pride of place. Dark stains dribbled over the varnished oak and the hemp that held its moving parts in place was as sharp as razors. Gingerly, Cecil ran his index finger over the surface, the wood worn smooth, the rope new and taut.

  ‘Skere and Frizers, Sir Robert,’ Topcliffe announced suddenly, making the Spymaster jump at great risk to life and limb.

  ‘That’s Skeres,’ Skeres corrected him, ‘with an “s”.’

  ‘You can have mine, Nick,’ Frizer told him. He felt Topcliffe’s right hand across the back of his head for his insolence. ‘With or without an “s”, pizzle,’ the rack-master snarled, ‘hold your tongue.’

  ‘Gentlemen,’ Cecil nodded to them.

  ‘Sir Robert,’ Frizer hobbled forward, his ankles heavy with Topcliffe’s chains. ‘Are we glad to see you!’

  Cecil ignored him and beckoned Topcliffe to join him at the far side of the room. ‘Marlowe,’ he whispered. ‘What’s all this about … your man, Gilbert?’

  ‘He was here, Sir Robert, yesterday. Showed me a writ of yours – forged, of course – for the release of Thomas Sledd. I pretended not to know who he was – Marlowe, I mean.’

  Cecil frowned. ‘This Sledd; what do we know?’

  ‘What did we know of Gerald Campion until his true Papist colours emerged?’

  ‘You think Sledd is a Jesuit?’ Cecil felt obliged to ask.

  ‘No, sir, he claims to be a stage manager at the Rose, but that’s halfway to Hell in itself, isn’t it?’

  ‘No doubt, no doubt,’ Cecil murmured. ‘Master Topcliffe, could you leave us for a moment? When I have done, strike these men’s irons and release them.’

  Topcliffe frowned. Letting three of his vermin go was not his idea of fulfilling his duty or keeping the Queen safe. His menagerie would soon be empty at this rate. ‘Certainly, sir,’ he said. ‘And Jenkins?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Actor from the Rose,’ Topcliffe told him.

  Cecil shrugged. ‘Do what you like with him.’

  Topcliffe’s morning suddenly brightened and he strode off to break the good news to the man who had had the bad luck to be playing a Vice Admiral of Spain.

  ‘I’m sorry about this,’ Cecil said, finding a chair as quickly as he could so that he d
idn’t have to look up at Skeres or Frizer. ‘I thought it best to have you both rounded up as suspects so that you can go about your business as heroes.’ He glanced at the rack. ‘You know the sort of thing I mean. “They could not break me”, et cetera, et cetera.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Skeres tapped the side of his nose. ‘I get you, sir. As soon as you took us on, I said to Ing, I said, “We’ll be all right with Sir Robert,” I said. Didn’t I, Ing?’

  Frizer looked less than bowled over with bonhomie. He had been knocked unconscious, fettered (for which he had paid) and left to lie in the filth of the Tower. Food? He could barely remember what that was.

  ‘Marlowe.’ Cecil talked directly to him. ‘What of him?’

  ‘We’ve followed him everywhere, sir,’ Frizer said. ‘Even got ourselves in Henslowe’s company at the Rose.’

  Cecil nodded. He had thought he recognized the most wooden knight on the stage.

  ‘He went to Petworth.’

  ‘The wizard earl,’ Cecil said softly.

  ‘Then to Sendmarsh.’

  ‘Sendmarsh?’ Cecil had to think for a moment, but although he had not been Spymaster for long, he had been training for it for many a long year. ‘Sendmarsh? That …’ he clicked his fingers. ‘Got it! Salazar.’

  Skeres opened his mouth to continue the list, but Frizer was faster. ‘Then he went to Durham House, in the Strand.’

  ‘The Great Lucifer,’ Cecil murmured.

  ‘Then, and this is where we, sort of, had to part company with him, he went off with his man. We don’t know quite where. He crossed the river and went west.’

  ‘I thought I heard him say Zion,’ Skeres added, ‘but that might just be the play we’re in. All those trumpets and tabours and things – they play havoc with your ears.’

  Cecil rewarded him with a sharp glance. Could he be stupid or was he merely hiding behind it? It was never easy to tell. But he had the clue he needed. ‘Syon,’ he said. ‘Thomas Hariot.’ A dark smile crept over his face. ‘Gentlemen, you have done well. Friend Marlowe keeps an odd company indeed. If the Devil cast his net …’ He rummaged in his purse and scattered silver coins on the scarred table in front of him. ‘For your pains,’ he said.