by M. J. Trow
‘Sorry, my lord.’
‘Do you know Mistress Francis Browne?’ Lady Montague was pursuing Marlowe across the lawns at Cowdray Castle, her lapdogs yapping at her feet and stumbling over the grass. ‘My sister?’
‘Er … I have not had the pleasure, my lady,’ Marlowe had to confess.
‘But … why has she never mentioned you? I mean, a famous playwright living only a few doors away …’
Lord Montague sighed. ‘Your sister doesn’t actually live there, Mrs B.,’ he said while Bennett adjusted the straps. ‘She just owns the place. Bit of a rat-hole, Marlowe, I expect.’
‘I like it, my lord,’ Marlowe smiled. ‘It’s home, of a sort.’
‘Yes, of course. An Englishman’s home is his castle.’ He glanced up at the mock turrets to his left. ‘Literally, in the case of mine, of course. Tell me, how’s old Tilney? I haven’t seen him for years.’
‘He’s well, my lord,’ Marlowe beamed, ‘and sends you every good wish for you and yours.’ He missed out the little fact that the last time he had met the Queen’s Master of the Revels, he had blacked the man’s eye over dramatic differences.
‘Edmund Tilney!’ Lady Montague’s eyes flashed under her fringe of steel-grey hair. ‘He always rather liked my volta.’
‘Yes.’ Lord Montague flexed his gauntlet-hinges to prove he was still young enough to move his fingers without the aid of external flunkeys, ‘and you rather liked his, I seem to remember. Master Marlowe, go with her, will you, and see that she doesn’t go completely Bess O’Bedlam over the garden party? She’s talking about tables forty-eight yards long! I mean,’ and he looked at the playwright with exasperation written all over his face, ‘it’s not normal, is it? Mrs B.,’ he spoke to his wife sharply but clearly and using simple words. She was not an easy woman to manage, being considered by most who met her as a bit of a handful. ‘I will lend Master Marlowe to you for precisely twenty minutes. After that, he and I will discuss boys’ things. After all, Her Majesty isn’t coming to coo over your table linen, she’s coming to see a tournament. Blood and guts, eh, Marlowe?’
‘I’m sure Her Majesty will approve of all she sees at Cowdray, my lord,’ he smiled.
‘Yes,’ Montague sighed. ‘You’re a courtier all right. Twenty minutes, Mrs B. – then I’m sending Bennett here to save Marlowe’s life.’
Jack Norfolk had not accompanied Marlowe up to the house. In accordance with his status, he walked the horses to the stables and made small talk with the ostlers, Montague men to a man.
‘You won’t find a better master this side of the Rother,’ one told him.
‘New money,’ another said, ‘knows what’s like to be shoe-worn. Man of the people.’
‘One of us,’ a third chimed in, passing a water-ladle to Norfolk. ‘No airs and graces. What’s yours like?’
‘My master?’ Norfolk chuckled. ‘So kind a lord. He’s a playwright, you know. Famous.’
‘Is he?’ That was as far as intellectual curiosity went among the stable lads on the Cowdray estate of the Viscount Montague in the year of his Lord 1591.
Supper was excellent and the Rhenish flowed. Lord Montague regaled Marlowe with tales of Tilbury, where, as a Captain of Horse, he had heard Her Majesty’s speech to her troops as Philip’s great Armada approached. Marlowe found himself reciting along silently, without moving his lips, of course; to do otherwise would not have been the action of a polite guest. But, after all, he had written it.
‘I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king – aye, and a king of England too.’ Montague sighed and looked into his goblet reminiscently, a tear in his eye.
‘And to think,’ Lady Montague broke in, ‘she is coming here, under my roof.’
Montague rolled his eyes but said nothing.
‘Master Marlowe, isn’t it just too exciting?’
Marlowe could almost hear the jingle of the bells on her jesses and couldn’t look at her; it would spoil the illusion to see just a little, brown-haired woman by his side.
‘How long?’ Jack Norfolk thought he must have misheard.
‘Forty-eight yards,’ Marlowe confirmed.
‘Is she quite the full angel?’ Norfolk had to ask.
‘Just go through the motions, Jack, there’s a good lad.’
And Norfolk shrugged, trudging off in the early morning light to measure out the dining area with Lord Montague’s groundskeepers in tow.
Marlowe himself had other priorities. Montague had yielded nothing the day and night before. On the surface of it, he was a loyal Englishman, devoted to his Queen and country. But there were rumours in Whitehall, whispers among the Intelligencers who had once worked for Walsingham and now worked for Cecil. In Montague was a man who, like them all, was fed by Elizabeth, but maybe now was the cur that bit the hand that fed it. And, anyway, Marlowe was walking towards the sounds of combat.
The tilt yard was paced out already, hung with flags and ropes, although it would be weeks before the Queen arrived. Marlowe glanced back to the house and chuckled to himself. If Jack Norfolk had hoped to work out the guests’ seating in relative peace, he would be disappointed; Lady Montague had joined him and Marlowe could see the diminutive woman fluttering around him, hands flapping with excitement, babbling about God-knew-what.
Anthony Montague sat his horse at the edge of the field, a goblet of wine in his hand and his legs encased in iron. In front of him two men, in full armour for the foot combat, slogged it out, halberd to halberd and toe to toe. They swayed together, their pole-axes glancing blows off helmets and pauldrons.
‘Keep your guard up, Georgie!’ Montague shouted. ‘He’s running rings round you!’
One of the duellists saluted him briskly, his face completely hidden by the ugly helmet. He swung himself forward and met the solid bulk of his opponent, who batted him aside. Montague pounded his high saddle in fury and muttered to Marlowe, ‘Do you have children, Marlowe?’
‘No, my lord.’
‘Hmm,’ Montague snorted. ‘When you do, be sure you don’t breed a goose. Actually, between you and me, I think young George is a changeling. He’s no Browne. Hasn’t even got the fire of his mother. Lower, you clod!’ But the warning came too late and Georgie Browne found himself flat on his back, his halberd gone and a bruised mess where his ego had been.
‘Hoo!’ Montague called, giving tongue to the old cry that broke combatants up in the lists. He spurred his animal forward and he stooped to help the boy up. Georgie tilted back his visor and Marlowe saw that the boy was no more than fifteen or sixteen. ‘We’ll have words, boy, you and I,’ Montague said. ‘Her Majesty’s rumoured to be in a knighting mood this summer. Give her a display like that and it won’t be you feeling the rapier on your shoulder. Get yourself cleaned up.’ Marlowe could see how Montague suspected a cuckoo in his nest. Young Georgie was pale and thin, with light eyes for which downcast seemed to be the only position. But for all his slightness, Marlowe could see muscles strung to twanging point in his neck; a young man on a sword edge, or he was no judge.
‘Sorry, my lord,’ Georgie’s opponent raised his visor too, ‘if I was too rough …’
‘Pox on it, Shoesmith,’ Montague growled. ‘It’s what I pay you for. If the bastard Don comes back, they’ll not be gentle with any of us, least of all wimps like this one.’
‘Papa—’ the boy began, but his father cut him short.
‘We’ve a practice tournament here in two days’ time,’ he snarled. ‘Unless you can make a better fist than that, you won’t be in the field for Her Majesty. You can make cakes in the kitchen and show off the stumpwork with your mother,’ and he wheeled his horse away.
Shoesmith replaced his halberd in the rack and unbuckled his helmet. He shrugged at Georgie and trudged off in his master’s wake. The boy put his weapon back too and pulled off the heavy helmet, letting it fall to the ground.
‘Master Browne?’ Marlowe crossed to him. The boy looked even young
er now that his auburn hair lay plastered to his forehead with sweat. He had a sprinkling of freckles over his nose and his pale eyes were full of tears of embarrassment and humiliation. Marlowe had not seen him at supper the night before, perhaps because he was hardly the apple of his father’s eye. ‘I am Christopher Marlowe, here on the Queen’s business to arrange the revels for your parents. Can you spare me a minute?’
They sat side by side on the hay bales, sipping ale and munching bread. It had been a hard morning, but a worthwhile one, they both believed. Marlowe was more at home with a rapier and dagger, he had to admit, but as a boy he had swung a quarter-staff to good effect along the Stour at Canterbury. A halberd was a little different. And by the time the pair were taking their repast, he had passed on a world of knowledge to the lad.
‘Of course,’ Georgie said, ‘I’ll never be as good as Martin.’
‘Martin?’ Marlowe repeated. The name had not come up before.
‘My brother,’ Georgie moaned. ‘My elder, bigger, better brother. Heir to all this.’ The boy waved his arm in the direction of the park, where the land fell away into the sun of the South Downs and the deer herd grazed.
Marlowe smiled. He came from a family of girls. His only brother was much younger than he was and never a threat. With a father like Anthony Montague – and he did have a father like him – what chance did this runt of the litter stand? ‘Do you hate him?’ the playwright asked.
Georgie thought for a moment. ‘I used to,’ he said. ‘Martin was always beating me up, making sure I got the blame for things. Mama couldn’t see it. Neither could Papa. The sun shone out of Martin’s arse and I was just blinded by the light. Now …’
‘Now that you’re older,’ Marlowe smiled.
‘You’re laughing at me, Master Marlowe,’ Georgie said, a little boy lost in a man’s world of steel and hard knocks and treachery wherever you looked.
‘No,’ the projectioner said, not wanting to hurt the boy’s all-too-injured feelings for the world. ‘Never that. It must be difficult, though, what with the Old Religion.’
Georgie gave a start and blinked. ‘How … how did you know?’
Marlowe laughed. ‘Your father is famous, Master Browne,’ he said. ‘Wasn’t he at the trial of the Queen of Scots? As an impartial judge?’
‘He was,’ Georgie nodded. ‘I was only little at the time, but I heard things …’
‘Oh?’
Georgie gnawed his lip. ‘Can I trust you, Master Marlowe? Papa has often told me not to talk to strange men.’
‘Your papa is right,’ Marlowe smiled, ‘but we of the Faith must stick together.’
‘You … you too?’
‘I am from Canterbury, Master Browne,’ he said. ‘It was once – and for me, always will be – the beating heart of the Catholic Church in England.’
‘Amen,’ the boy said and crossed himself. He opened his mouth to say something else, but suddenly thought better of it. Whatever this man’s faith, he worked for the Queen, the Jezebel of England. His papa – and his mama – had been right. There were some men too strange to talk to. The boy was on his feet. ‘I’ll try it, Master Marlowe,’ he said, ‘at the mock tournament. I’ll try it.’
Marlowe stood up with him. ‘Remember, Master Browne,’ he said. ‘Right hand. Left hand. Your opponent will never see it coming.’
It was far into the afternoon that Marlowe saw him arrive. The playwright was standing in Lord Montague’s library, dusty with unread tomes of the Puritan persuasion, and the thud of hoofs and the barking of dogs below made him turn to the window. A tall young man, slimmer and darker than his father, bigger and harder than his brother, swung out of the saddle as grooms rushed to hold his horse. Lady Montague was there, as always, kissing him and fussing. Marlowe saw her gesticulating to the library window and saw the young man looking up. Calmly and quietly, he began to focus on the tilt yard and the deer park. He pulled a sheet of parchment from his purse and studied it carefully.
He had barely counted to twenty in his head when the door crashed back and the young horseman strode in, pulling off his gloves. ‘You, sir,’ he said. ‘What do you do there?’
‘The Queen’s business,’ Marlowe said. ‘And a good day to you, Master Browne. Er … it is Master Browne?’
‘I am Martin Browne,’ the man said. He flung his gloves onto a table and poured himself a goblet of Rhenish. ‘You must be Marlowe, Tilney’s man.’
‘I suppose I must be,’ Marlowe bowed.
‘What are you doing in here?’ Browne wanted to know, his brow knotted and his fists clenched at his sides, the goblet unlifted, the wine undrunk. Martin Browne was a man in whom anger and frustration were never far below the surface. A vein throbbed in his neck and Marlowe noticed it; it was not a good sign in one so young and he foretold an early grave for this one – by the hand of God, if not by a fellow man.
‘Surveying your father’s grounds,’ Marlowe said.
‘What? How?’
Marlowe held out the parchment scrap and Browne looked at it, frowning. ‘This is Cowdray Castle,’ he said, outraged. ‘The plans of my father’s house.’
‘Quite,’ Marlowe said, secretly rather surprised that this oaf recognized it. ‘But it is a flat, two-dimensional depiction. It’s not the same as seeing it in the flesh, as it were. The angles of the windows, the colour of the stones.’ He breathed in the dust, the unique taint of leather books left alone to moulder for far too long. ‘You have to see a place,’ he said, ‘and to smell it to truly know it. Don’t you agree?’
Browne blinked. He had none of the happy enthusiasm of his mother, none of the wide-eyed innocence of his brother, not even the rough bonhomie of his father. Somehow, he was the embodiment of all the faults none of his family seemed to possess and Marlowe pitied him for it. ‘What are you?’ the heir to Cowdray snapped. ‘Some damned poet?’
‘Poet, certainly,’ Marlowe smiled. ‘Damned? Well, that remains to be seen.’
‘Where did you get this?’ Browne demanded to know, waving the paper in Marlowe’s face.
‘Whitehall,’ the progress planner said. ‘We have the ground plans – and a few projections – of every landed house in the country.’
‘The Devil you say!’ Browne blustered.
‘Indeed I do,’ Marlowe said. ‘Are you bothered by this, Master Browne? Have you something to hide?’
Marlowe had not expected the young man to become any redder or more furious and yet, here he was, purple and posturing like a turkey cock. He closed to him, his jaw flexing, the vein now beating a mad tattoo. ‘We Brownes – we Montagues – have nothing to hide, Marlowe. We serve the Queen, man, like all Her Majesty’s loyal subjects. But …’ he raised the paper and tore it slowly down the centre and then again and once more before letting the pieces fall to the floor, ‘this is going too far. I would rather the Master of the Revels and his lackeys didn’t know every fart that flies at Cowdray. Wherever Mama has housed you, stay there. The library, the solar, the chapel, they’re all out of bounds – d’you hear?’
‘Of course,’ Marlowe said, with a half-bow. ‘Oh, and don’t worry about that little accident there.’ He pointed to the paper pieces scattered on the floor. ‘We have plenty of copies in Whitehall.’ He made for the door, then paused. ‘Couldn’t help noticing,’ he said with a smile, ‘that you have a first edition of Timothy Bright’s Characterie there.’ He pointed to a shelf. ‘The finest annotation of the Puritan gospel ever written. Her Majesty will be delighted.’
The library. The solar. The chapel. Those were the rooms that Martin Browne had banned Marlowe from entering. Those were the rooms where something was hidden from the light of day. The man from the Office of the Queen’s Revels had already checked the books. Unless there was a secret catch that revolved shelves or slid walls aside, there was nothing of a sinister nature there. The solar would be full of family – Lord Montague holding forth in his gruff way on anything under the sun; his over-excitable wife rabbiting away about the
Progress; the sons ignoring each other with a nonchalance that was almost palpable. Nothing would be gained there. That left the chapel.
He waited until after dark, lying on his bed fully clothed, his dagger ready for the sheath. He left the curtains of the bed and of the window drawn back so that he could catch every sound, watch the courtyard below emptying of its people and growing quiet with the coming of the night. He heard the bolts slide and rattle as Montague’s servants locked the doors and fastened the casements. The dog-handler was the last human he saw, the master’s hounds yelping and snapping at his heels as he swore at them and disappeared into the kennels. Then … silence.
Marlowe moved. The dagger was at his back and he wore his black doublet to blend with the shadows. The door opened quietly enough and he walked slowly, testing each floorboard with a careful toe before putting his weight on it. Montague’s house servants served him well – each board was firm and silent, though waxed enough to slip the unwary. At the head of a stairs, a bad copy of the Queen’s Armada portrait stared out of its canvas, her sleeves unfeasibly huge, her hair somebody else’s, her hand on the world her admirers claimed she owned. No, Marlowe smiled, remembering his last conversation with Cecil, he had never met the Queen. Yet, here he was, doing her bidding again, creeping along a landing in a stranger’s house, prying into another man’s secrets, putting his life on the line that separates good from evil, night from day. A line that was not easy to tread, being the misty aurora of twilight and of dawn.
The dogs had gone. The servants and the house slept. Marlowe crept down the curve of the stairs, across the marble of the hall. The glimmer of the fading light through the windows shone briefly on the full harness of Lord Montague, the armour he had worn at Tilbury in the dark days of the invasion threat. But had that threat gone? A Papist king who ruled half the earth had launched not one, but two Armadas – who was to say he would not launch a third? And there were other ways by which it could be done. Threats to the nation’s security, like troubles, came as spies more often than they came as battalions – a single knife, not a company of cannon.