Eleventh Hour

by M. J. Trow

  Not even Sledd could recognize Belzebub, his face and hands black, a flash of lightning running like a livid scar from his forehead to his jawline. Kit Marlowe had never played in his own works before. He had rarely played in anybody’s works before. Tom Sledd was not the only person who had noticed the metaphorical broom up his backside as soon as he walked onstage and his opportunities had been few even when he was trying to make a name for himself. But tonight was different. Everybody sensed it. This was no ordinary performance. This was no ordinary play.

  ‘Kit.’ Shaxsper was still struggling with his ruff, whispering to Marlowe backstage. ‘Don’t think me ungrateful for the billing, but why …?’

  Marlowe stopped him with a raised hand. ‘Patience,’ he said. ‘All will be revealed.’

  ‘It’s just that this play, this Faustus story … well, it’s a bit … near the knuckle, isn’t it? One thing’s for sure; it’ll never get past the Master of the Revels.’

  Marlowe was peering through Sledd’s flats of Faustus’s study at Wittenberg, watching the audience as they waited. ‘The Master of the Revels is the least of our worries tonight,’ he said.

  Shaxsper caught sight of Helen of Troy, a beautiful girl with grey eyes and golden hair. It was her presence that bothered him most of all. Not only was it illegal to have women on stage, it was bad luck. They were all risking God’s wrath with Faustus as it was; no need to frost the cake. But Marlowe had insisted. There were a number of young lads who could have taken the role – after all, Helen had no lines. But Marlowe had insisted, ignoring the protestations of almost everybody. Not only was Helen to be played by a girl; she was to be played by this girl, whom Marlowe himself had found.

  ‘And what’s all this about Helen?’ Shaxsper had to ask again.

  ‘When she comes on,’ Marlowe whispered, ‘watch if you can, the face of the magus. You’ll understand.’

  Shaxsper sighed heavily. He’d like that. He’d like to understand something that was going on tonight.

  The Heavens crashed and roared. There would be no music for Faustus, no orchestra cluttering the stage. Just Tom Sledd and his thunder-box. One or two of the ladies shrieked and the men were secretly glad of that – it hid their own fears. The windows rattled and the candles guttered, half of them going out with the blast. Henslowe had dispensed with the Chorus to open the play. The man wasn’t very good and, anyway, he had had to leave town very suddenly when the father of a young lady he knew arrived at the Rose with two enormous sons and several large clubs. So the scene settled on Alleyn, sitting alone in his study, surrounded by charts, circles, numbers, hieroglyphs and a brass object that looked very like Hariot’s perspective trunk, pointing through Ralegh’s windows to the Heavens.

  Marlowe watched him. Hariot would not show that he was impressed. How the Devil …?

  ‘Settle thy studies, Faustus,’ Alleyn began, talking to himself as all the School of Night did in their laboratories. He had his instructions from Marlowe. With various lines, he was to pause and look at certain members of the audience. He just hoped he’d get that right. Aeneas, Tamburlaine, Barabbas; all his great roles had had their challenges, but this was something else.

  ‘Yet,’ he said with the voice that had held thousands in the sound, ‘art thou still but Faustus and a man?’ He half turned in his chair to face Salazar. ‘Couldst thou make men to live eternally, or, being dead, raise them to life again …’ He paused, long enough for Salazar to hear his own heart thump. What knavery was this? His innermost secrets spilled on to the world’s stage. What was going on?

  ‘Stipendium peccati mors est,’ Alleyn murmured, staring into the eyes of Walter Ralegh. ‘The reward of sin is death.’ Ralegh’s eyes flickered, first to Bess, then back to Faustus, who had the attention of them all.

  ‘These necromantic books are heavenly.’ Alleyn threw a few of them about, unaware of Henslowe cringing backstage. They had cost him an arm and a leg. The actor fixed his stare on to Hariot. ‘Lines, circles, scenes, letters and characters; ay, these are those that Faustus most desires.’

  The mood of the audience lightened measurably when Ben Kent came on as the Good Angel. They had all seen Mystery Plays in their childhoods. It was like coming home. ‘Oh, Faustus,’ Kent intoned, doing his best vicar impression, ‘lay that damned book aside and gaze not on it lest it tempt thy soul … Read, read the Scriptures; that is blasphemy.’ But the audience dipped again when it was clear that dear old Ben was wasting his time; Faustus was having none of it. Alleyn stood up and walked slowly to the stage’s apron. Now he could touch any of the School of Night, at least with a sword. He was happy to see that none of them carried one.

  ‘Philosophy is odious and obscure,’ he said, looking each man in the face. ‘Both law and physic are for petty wits; Divinity is the basest of the three.’

  Salazar decided to brazen it out. Whoever this Shakespeare fellow was, he was playing games with them, having a laugh at their expense. Well, he for one could cope with that. He clapped his hands several times, slowly. But Ned Alleyn had trod the boards of London’s theatres for years and nothing could throw him. He leaned forward to Salazar. ‘’Tis magic, magic that hath ravished me.’

  ‘Going well,’ Skeres muttered to Frizer as they scampered across the stage behind Lucifer, all cloven hoofs and thrashing tails. Even so, he wasn’t ready for another of Sledd’s thunderclaps when it came and he bit his tongue. Thank God he had no lines in this bit.

  It grated on Burbage that his first line should play second fiddle to Alleyn, but there it was. ‘Now, Faustus,’ he boomed, ‘what wouldst thou have me do?’ The greatest actors of the day circled each other on the stage. The audience had long ago got over the usual fidgeting and casual conversation. They were silent, rapt, intent to catch every word. It was what both Alleyn and Burbage expected – complete, unadulterated adulation.

  ‘Where art thou damned?’ Alleyn asked Burbage.

  ‘In Hell,’ came the reply.

  ‘How comes it, then,’ Alleyn closed to the Devil in front of him, ‘that thou art out of Hell?’

  It was Burbage’s turn to face the School of Night. ‘Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it.’ They all shifted in their seats, Ralegh stony-faced, John Dee regretting that he had let Marlowe and Henslowe talk him into this. It was at this point that things turned ugly. Alleyn had not been happy about it. He was all for realism, but a real knife? A real cut? Marlowe had told him not to worry; there would be a doctor on hand to staunch the blood. And anyway, it was nothing that Alleyn had not experienced a dozen times when things got out of hand at the Mermaid.

  ‘Lo, Mephistophilis,’ Alleyn held the dagger high, ‘for love of thee, I cut mine arm,’ he sliced the blade through his velvet sleeve and the skin beneath and held the hand downwards. ‘… View here this blood that trickles … and let it be propitious for my wish.’ He scowled across at Salazar.

  There was an inrush of breath from the audience.

  ‘How do they do that?’ Percy asked Strange, as though the man with his own acting troupe would have the answer. Viscosity he understood; tricks of the theatrical trade, not so much so.

  ‘He’s done it,’ Strange murmured, lost in the action. ‘He’s made his pact with the Devil.’ He crossed himself. ‘God help him now.’

  A drum rattled from the wings, slowing to a solemn beat, like a heart in its last moments and walking gentlemen moved to a slow galliard in their Devils’ robes, bowing in turn before Faustus and leaving gifts at their feet. It was Ralegh’s turn to clap ironically. Around Alleyn, tobacco pipes were placed and tobacco leaves scattered. Expensive wines, in their dusty bottles and straw, joined them and lastly, as Frizer turned to bow to Hariot, a sack of potatoes.

  ‘Walter …’ The mathematician leaned across, fear and fury etched on his face.

  ‘Shut up, Thomas!’ Ralegh commanded, every bit as imperious as Mephistophilis himself.

  When Alleyn’s Faustus demanded books from Mephistophilis, each one of the School o
f Night was ready to leave, but none of them could, riveted as they were by the play unfolding in front of them.

  ‘Spells and incantations,’ Alleyn spoke directly to Salazar. ‘All characters and planets of the heavens,’ he spoke to Dee. ‘All plants, herbs and trees that grow upon the earth,’ he spoke to Strange. The night grew dark. No one heard Sledd’s thunder any more, or saw the smoke crawl along the ground. Marlowe, black as Belzebub, stood on stage now and introduced to Faustus the seven deadly sins, the number of the chairs that night at Dr Dee’s house. Pride, envy, wrath, covetousness, gluttony, sloth and lechery, all of them in dazzling costumes bowed before Faustus and told him their stories.

  ‘Bell, book and candle,’ Alleyn intoned, ‘Candle, book and bell. Forward and backward, to curse Faustus in Hell.’

  A mighty line and one that, for most of the audience, regular playgoers as they were, seemed to sound the end of the Act. But they sat back down again as the action swept on, numbed by Sledd’s thunder, Alleyn’s acting and, unknown to them all, Marlowe’s words. Friars wandered the stage, holding their crosses high, pulling back their cowls as they chanted ‘Maledicat dominus’ over and over. May God curse him. And the School of Night looked at each other. Were they not all cursed by God?

  The assassins circled each other on the stage, peering out into the audience looking for their target. Three of them carried knives, the fourth an axe. ‘Then, gentle Frederick,’ Benvolio said, ‘hie thee to the grove and place our servants and our followers close in an orchard there behind the trees …’

  Elias Carter found himself nodding. He still remembered the near miss as the crossbow bolt had all but parted Marlowe’s hair. In the wings, Will Shaxsper, still struggling mentally with his Henry VI, scribbled the name down. Benvolio. That was good. He could do something with that.

  ‘Here will we stay to bide the first assault,’ Benvolio went on, cradling his axe. ‘O, were that damned Hell-hound but in place, thou soon should see me quit my foul disgrace!’

  Hell-hound, Shaxsper scribbled. Better and better. Alleyn, all innocence, wandered across the stage and the killers fell on him. They scuffled together, Alleyn’s boots scraping on Sledd’s timbers.

  ‘Groan you, Master Doctor?’ Frederick asked, but he was looking at Dee.

  ‘Break may his heart with groans!’ Benvolio came back. ‘Dear Frederick, see, thus will I end his griefs immediately.’ Twice, thrice the axe fell, thudding into the woodwork. An arc of blood sprayed sideways and Faustus’s head bounced across the boards to disappear behind a curtain. Perfect. While there were screams from the ladies and cries of disgust from the gentlemen, Tom Sledd congratulated himself on a job well done.

  ‘Excellent, my boy,’ a delighted Henslowe whispered in Sledd’s ear. ‘The groundlings will love that bit.’

  As for Ned Alleyn, he stayed crouched behind his murderers, grateful for the fact that Marlowe hadn’t insisted on real blood for this scene in the play. Actor extraordinary he well may be, but beheading would be something hard to come back from. The assassins sat facing the audience. Benvolio’s axe blade glistened with blood. ‘Come,’ said Frederick, ‘let’s devise how we may add more shame to the black scandal of his hated name.’

  ‘We’ll pull out his eyes,’ a delighted Benvolio suggested, ‘and they shall serve for buttons to his lips, to keep his tongue from catching cold.’

  ‘An excellent policy!’ Martino laughed. ‘And now, sirs, having divided him, what shall the body do?’

  Alleyn’s feet twitched once, twice. Then his knees flexed and he sat upright. It hurt like Hell, straining the muscles of his back, but it impressed the audience. Bess Throckmorton, pale and ill looking, screamed again. Jane Dee looked at her husband for reassurance.

  ‘Zounds,’ Benvolio really didn’t need to tell anyone. ‘The Devil’s alive again.’

  Nearly as rattled as the audience when he turned round, Frederick yelled, ‘Give him his head, for God’s sake!’

  ‘Nay, keep it,’ Alleyn bellowed from inside his ruff. He thrust upwards and his head reappeared. ‘Faustus will have heads and hands …’

  Strange squinted, leaning forward. He’d seen some trickery in his time, but this was beyond him. Percy breathed out a sigh of relief. Of course it was all a play, smoke and mirrors. Of course; it had to be. And yet. And yet …

  No one was ready for the beautiful and silent girl who was led forward by the scholars later. Strange rubbed his eyes. Ralegh did a double take. It actually was a girl, wasn’t it? The Master of the Revels would never stand for that; he’d close Henslowe down and the Rose too, in all probability.

  ‘Was this fair Helen,’ the second scholar asked, ‘whose admired worth made Greece with ten years’ war afflict poor Troy?’ He took her by the hand and brought her forward to within feet of John Dee. The old magus was on his feet, his mouth open, a solitary tear trickling down his cheek.

  ‘Was this the face,’ Alleyn asked, watching them both, ‘that launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium? Sweet Helen,’ he closed to her, nodding briefly to Dee, ‘make him immortal with a kiss.’ The girl leaned forward, taking the magus’s face in both her hands and their lips met. In the silence that followed, the girl’s eyes were closed but Dee’s were wide open. Only he understood it fully. Only Jane understood it partially. She had seen the portraits of John’s first wife, Nell, whom he called Helene. Only Dee and Jane knew that Kit Marlowe had once promised to make her live again, in a play. Dee spun silently on his heel and left Ralegh’s hall, Jane in hot and frightened pursuit. What had just happened?

  Everyone was on the edge of their seats as the Devils gathered. The echoing drum gave them their marching rhythm, but the march was an inversion of what men did. They dragged their long, clashing tails and snarled their words.

  ‘What,’ Burbage had great delight in taunting Alleyn, kneeling, a broken man centre stage, ‘weep’st thou? ’Tis too late; despair! Farewell: Fools that will laugh on earth must weep in Hell.’

  ‘Stay,’ Alleyn roared, reaching out with both hands. ‘Stay, thou monstrous crawling thing.’

  Burbage looked down at him. This wasn’t in the script, not the one he’d seen, anyway.

  ‘Grant, in mighty Lucifer’s name, one last request of mine,’ Alleyn begged.

  Burbage had never been asked to make up lines before and he stood there, open-mouthed. When he got off stage he was going to cut Ned Alleyn a new arse. Meanwhile, that idiot Jenkins had taken his name for a cue and was capering and posturing across the stage. There was a strange smell of burning as well; he would be having a word with Sledd too; extra stage props should not be left to every Tom, Dick and Jenkins.

  ‘I would exchange it all,’ Alleyn dragged himself upright, using Burbage as a crutch, ‘for one boon.’

  ‘Name it,’ Henslowe mouthed from the wings, directly in Burbage’s eyeline.

  ‘Name it,’ Mephistophilis repeated, with as much gravitas as he could in the circumstances.

  Marlowe crept nearer, his black face glistening with the sweat of the greasepaint and the gleam from the candles. He wasn’t watching Burbage. He wasn’t watching Alleyn. He was watching the School of Night. All of them. They were all rigid, unmoving. Only Dee had gone and Marlowe would make his peace with him later.

  ‘At this eleventh hour, one man must die,’ Alleyn said and found himself being answered not by Mephistophilis but by Belzebub.

  ‘Name him,’ Marlowe said.

  ‘One close to the Queen and closer to himself.’

  ‘You wish him dead, this servant royal?’ He had crossed to Alleyn now and the two men faced each other. To Burbage, this was intolerable. He was just standing there like a walking gentleman, his tail dangling.

  ‘I do,’ Alleyn nodded, ‘and all his Puritan kind.’

  ‘How will you have it done? With ball or blade?’

  ‘With poison,’ Alleyn grunted, ‘from the shores far West of here.’

  Marlowe turned to face the audience.
From where he stood, he could see clearly the faces of both the men who had been to the far West. Ralegh, who had brought the Nicotiana plant. Hariot who had found the tuber. And he could see someone else too, someone standing half in the shadows behind the others, shifting imperceptibly, listening to the mighty lines from the Muse.

  ‘I’ll bring you poisons that will stop the blood,’ Marlowe said. ‘The weeds that kill the great and good. ’Tis best you mix them simply in the dark …’ He paused, watching the shadow slide sideways on the far wall, ‘With all the skills you learned in godless Prague.’ He was shouting now, his eyes wide, his finger pointing at them all, yet only pointing at one.

  No one was ready for the crash that shattered the window behind Marlowe’s head. Henslowe spun round, wondering how the Hell Tom Sledd could have done that. But Sledd was as nonplussed as his master. He gaped beyond the curtain, shattering the illusion of the moment as Marlowe dashed through the audience, kicking over chairs and scattering the School of Night as he went. Everyone was on their feet now, shouting at each other, screaming, wondering at the spectacle they had just witnessed.

  Only two pairs of feet thudded along Ralegh’s passageway beyond the Great Hall. Only one pair of hands slammed into the unforgiving oak doors. The echoes that usually rang with the chattering of ladies taking their exercise in inclement weather now returned curses that would make a sailor blench.