by M. J. Trow
On their way to talk to Percy, Faunt and Marlowe had visited the earl’s armoury. He owned four wheel-locks and none of them had been fired recently. There was no powder residue, no smell of sulphur. If the wizard earl had killed his light o’ love, he had either not used one of these guns or he was a wizard indeed. Faunt had stayed behind to make sure. Petworth was, after all, a house of hidden passageways and hollow walls.
‘Once more, my lord,’ Marlowe said, plumbing depths of patience he hadn’t known he had, ‘for the record.’
Percy sighed, shuddered and closed his eyes with the effort. All in all, it had been a truly shocking night and no one had slept. ‘We had had words, Barbara and I,’ he said, looking at the floor, ‘and I felt guilty about it. We left the meal early; she did that when …’ he looked down at his clenched fists in his lap for a moment and a tear splashed onto his cuff. Then, he continued, ‘… when she was in a temper. And she did have a temper, my Barbara, but it was usually over like a summer shower. I left her for a while and when Guiscard was holding forth with his rubbish, I went to her.’
‘Via your room?’
‘Of course. I always used that door. It saved … well, it saved talk.’
Marlowe doubted that the servants had missed much, but this was not the time to say so. ‘And you didn’t notice whether her door was locked?’
‘No. Why should I?’
‘Was Lady Barbara in the habit of locking her door?’ Marlowe asked.
Percy looked at him. ‘As I told you, Master Marlowe, she had a temper. Flounce is what she did. She was furious with me. I’d told her she couldn’t take part in the revels for the Queen.’
‘There’ll be no revels now,’ Marlowe assured him. ‘It wouldn’t be safe.’
‘You know it’s a conspiracy, don’t you?’ Percy said. For the first time since he had burst out onto the terrace crying Murder, his face showed some animation.
‘What is?’
‘Barbara’s death, of course. It’s six years, almost to the day, since my father was found dead in his cell in the Tower.’
‘Uncle Guiscard’s ghost story.’ Marlowe knew the gist.
Percy could just about manage a smile. ‘Not still coming out with that old rubbish, is he?’
‘You don’t believe it?’
‘I believe my father was murdered,’ Percy told him. ‘Do you know the Tower, Master Marlowe?’
‘Parts of it,’ the Queen’s man said.
‘My father was in the Wakefield Tower. Days before his death, Sir Christopher Hatton – may he rot in Hell – appointed a new gaoler, a knave called Bailiff. I am certain that this pizzle killed him, with a lead ball through his heart. Sound familiar? Hatton gave it out as a suicide, though no pistol was found near the body. There was a tract published in Cologne – I have it somewhere – that accused Bailiff and Hatton of the crime.’
‘And the Queen?’ Marlowe asked.
Percy nodded, looking at the man full in the face for once. ‘Of course, the Queen. I am under no illusions, Master Marlowe. When my father was sent to the Tower, it was for the third time. He had been loyal to Her Majesty, but not, I have to admit, consistently.’ He got up and crossed to the latticed window, gazing out to the deer herd grazing in the summer morning. ‘Our roots are in the north. Berwick, Tynemouth, the Border lands, we controlled the Scots Marches for generations … Ever since Hotspur, we have rattled the chains of government, defied kings to their faces. I would beg you to believe that I have no interest in those things. Give me my books, my laboratory, a poet’s pen …’ his voice faltered, ‘… and the woman I love, and I am content.’
Marlowe crossed the room to join him. It was easy to be content in a house like Petworth, with your own land stretching to every horizon, but he forbore to remind the man of that. ‘But you don’t have the woman you love now, do you? Is that Gloriana’s fault too?’
Percy glowered at him. ‘You’re a cold-hearted bastard, Kit Marlowe,’ he growled.
‘Somebody has to be, my lord,’ he said. ‘As the Queen’s representative, I will stay until the coroner arrives. Expect more questions from him. Expect another bastard, more cold-hearted than I will ever be this side of the grave. If you’ll take my advice, you’ll tell him nothing.’
Percy nodded, turning back to the window.
Marlowe half bowed and made for the door. ‘One final thing,’ he said. ‘Who has keys to Lady Barbara’s room, my lord?’
Percy spread his arms without turning around. ‘No one,’ he said. ‘Everyone.’
Marlowe waited. Hoy-day, a riddle – that was all he needed.
‘All the keys to the house are kept by my steward, Critchley. And all the spares are hanging in the kitchen.’
Steward Critchley was loyalty itself. No, he assured Faunt, no key had ever left his possession. And yes, anyone had access to the spares. The Percys, after all, had nothing to hide; that remark alone made Faunt raise an eyebrow.
‘That means,’ Faunt told Marlowe, as they put their heads together before the arrival of the coroner, ‘that it must be one of the servants. No stranger would know which key was which.’
‘All right,’ Marlowe said. ‘You find me such a servant. According to Tom, she was not an easy lady, except where Sir Henry was concerned, in which case she could make a whore blush. The servants seemed to take it all in their stride, but perhaps one of the more straitlaced ones might have taken offence; but it doesn’t seem a shooting offence, even so. And that offended person would need to have a wheel-lock and the skill to load and fire it. They would need to time it perfectly, so no one heard the shot. If you can find me that servant, Nicholas, we can all sleep peacefully in our beds. As it is, we must leave this crime reeking to Heaven for the moment. We have other places to be.’
The meadows lay dumb in the heat as Marlowe’s little band saw the spire of Chichester Cathedral. It pointed to Heaven like a finger, the only one of God’s houses visible to those in peril on the sea.
Tom Sledd was rather more concerned with those in peril on the land as they rounded a bend in the road and were faced with a huge flock of sheep. The animals just stood there, chewing the grass by the roadside and raising their heads occasionally to stare with vacant, glassy eyes. Sheep didn’t bother the Londoner at all. They grazed at will on the Bishop of Winchester’s land south of the river and it was almost a daily progress that saw the bell-carrying drovers prodding them over the bridge on their way to slaughter at Smithfield.
No, what bothered Tom Sledd was the rough-looking gang of shepherds forming into what looked suspiciously like a phalanx ahead of their beasts. They bristled with weapons; pitchforks, scythes, sickles and clubs. And one of them had a vicious-looking dog on a tight leash. It was like no sheepdog any of the riders had ever seen; a smooth-coated, liver-coloured, wall-eyed beast with a huge head and jaws, its ears battered and chewed, its tongue lolling – a fighting dog, if ever there was one. The horsemen reined in.
‘What’s this, then?’ Sledd murmured to Marlowe out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Welcome to Chichester?’
One of the shepherds almost answered his question. ‘Bound for the city, masters?’ he asked.
Marlowe and Faunt read the same message into that. The man was proud of his probable birthplace, referring to Chichester as a city, and he knew his place, recognizing good clothes and horses when he saw them. It was the tone of the word ‘masters’ that caused the pair to exchange glances.
‘What’s that to you?’ Sledd called back. Didn’t the oaf know who he was, that a knighthood hovered in the wings and that Kit Marlowe – yes, the Kit Marlowe – carried the Queen’s cypher?
‘We have business with His Grace the Bishop,’ Marlowe glared at his stage manager, who refused to be cowed.
‘So, you see,’ Sledd went on, ‘that means it’s no business of yours.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong, pretty boy,’ the shepherd growled. ‘You’re from Lunnon, ain’t you, by your accent?’
‘
What if I am?’ It had never occurred to Tom Sledd that he had an accent, having lost it so frequently playing various heroines of the stage.
‘We don’t like folk from Lunnon.’ The shepherd was cradling a pitchfork as if he longed for a chance to use it.
‘Show him the cypher, Kit,’ Faunt muttered, ‘or we’ll be here all day.’
‘We are here on the Queen’s business,’ Marlowe said and produced the silver dragon from his purse.
‘We know that,’ another shepherd shouted. ‘And we’ve seen that gewgaw before. What do you say, Wat, five more for the pig trough?’
There were guffaws and mutterings among the shepherds. Wat summed up the situation. The odd cleric on a donkey, a couple of merchants travelling in ladies’ shifts, even two or three of the bishop’s lads. But there were five of these travellers, all full grown, three of them certainly armed, the others probably, and the one with the full beard was built like a Sussex shithouse.
‘Give us the gewgaw,’ a third, younger or more stupid than the rest piped up, ‘and we’ll let you pass.’
Marlowe urged his horse forward and leaned down to the boy as a few of the sheep began to scatter. ‘I could give you this,’ he said over the saddlebow, ‘but since this is the Queen’s cypher, I would have committed an act of treason. By accepting it, so would you.’ He sat upright again, letting the dragon flash in the sun. ‘What does Master Topcliffe do with those who defile the image of the Queen, Nicholas?’
Faunt played along, shaking his head at the contemplation of it. ‘Hanging’s the kindest part,’ he said, smiling at the boy, ‘but of course, that’s just the beginning. Richard’s a master of his art, of course, so he times it all to perfection. Well,’ he chuckled, ‘you know Topcliffe, Kit, always one to please the crowd. He’ll wait until you’ve turned blue, lad, and the veins are standing out on your neck. Then, he’ll cut you down.’
‘That’s when the fun really begins,’ Marlowe took up the tale. ‘They’ll strap you down to a table and show you the instruments they’re about to use.’
An unaccustomed smile broke across the face of Leonard Lyttleburye. ‘That’s my favourite part,’ he rumbled.
‘Make your weapons look like playthings,’ Faunt nodded. ‘Having feasted your already bulging eyes on razor-sharp glaives and hooks, old Richard will go to work on your joints. You’d be used to that, though, being shepherds and all. Just four little cuts, one for each limb and there you are, ready for the next bit.’
‘But Nicholas,’ Marlowe tutted, grinning like a death’s head at the nearest shepherd. ‘You’ve missed out the best part of all.’
Faunt slapped his forehead. ‘If this wasn’t screwed on,’ he said. ‘Of course, between the hanging and the dismemberment, there’s the drawing.’
‘That’s what we scholars call a euphemism,’ Marlowe beamed. He wasn’t one to pull rank, but the Chichester welcoming committee had annoyed him. ‘Actually, it’s disembowelling. Master Topcliffe will use his favourite hook to slice your abdomen and haul out your entrails …’
‘To be fair, Master Marlowe,’ Norfolk chimed in from the rear of the little column, ‘I have heard that most people have passed out or died of the pain by then.’ He rubbed his chin in thought. ‘Though, thinking about it, how do we know? Nobody’s ever lived to tell the tale, after all.’
‘Good point well made, Master Norfolk,’ Faunt said. ‘A very good point.’ He added his lupine smile to the rest and the shepherd phalanx rocked on its collective heels.
The youngest shepherd had been turning slowly ever greener as the men from London held forth, and he suddenly jack-knifed sideways and vomited all over a sheep. There were growls and groans of disgust.
‘So you see,’ Marlowe said, ‘I’m afraid I cannot let you have this. Of course,’ he drew his sword ostentatiously, ‘if you’d care to try to take it …’
Faunt drew his rapier too. Jack Norfolk slid the schiavona into his fist and watched Leonard Lyttleburye unhook the studded club he carried tied to his saddle. Faced with an array like that, Tom Sledd’s solitary knife would have looked rather puny, so he didn’t draw it, merely looked daggers at the shepherds.
Marlowe nudged his chestnut with his spurs and all five of them rode on, shepherds and sheep dispersing as they rode.
‘Friendly lot,’ Sledd muttered to Marlowe. ‘What did they mean, they knew we were here on the Queen’s business? How come people of the clay like that know Her Majesty’s itinerary?’
‘We’ll have to ask His Grace the Bishop,’ Marlowe said. ‘I’m sure he’ll enlighten us.’
His Grace the Bishop had been enlightening people for years. His Christianity was muscular, especially when he had been Warden of Merton College, Oxford, and many were the young churchmen who still carried the weals on their arses from the powerful right hand – and leather-thonged cat – of Thomas Brickley.
Marlowe’s party was ensconced in the Almoner’s House, an ancient adjunct to the great cathedral, and their horses were tethered in the stables in the Pallant nearby. It was rather cramped, since Marlowe’s stout lad had now become four and Norfolk, Lyttleburye and the less-than-enchanted Tom Sledd all bickered over the single bed under the eaves. Only Marlowe and Faunt had a bed each, as befitted their status as generosi.
‘Generosi, my arse!’ Sledd muttered when Marlowe was out of his hearing. ‘His old man is a cobbler in Canterbury. If that makes him a gentleman, I’ll grow a pair of tits and play the women for real.’
‘Now, now,’ Jack Norfolk scolded, smilingly, trying to find somewhere to hang his doublet. ‘From what I’ve seen and heard of you two, you’d follow that man through Hellfire.’
Tom Sledd grunted, annoyed all over again because Jack Norfolk was right. It didn’t help that Marlowe had just told him that the Queen expected no revels in Chichester, merely a service in the cathedral. Tom could sit this one out.
‘When you say “merely a service” …’ Bishop Brickley did not care for Kit Marlowe’s choice of words. The man was a scribbler, a writer of plays, an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. Surely, Her Majesty could do better than this to arrange her Progress?
‘Forgive me, Your Grace.’ Marlowe half bowed. ‘I meant no disrespect. I was a chorister myself.’
‘Were you, indeed?’ Brickley narrowed his eyes. He found it hard to believe that the roisterer before him, all velvet and lace, had ever attended a service, much less sung in one. ‘Where?’
‘Canterbury,’ Marlowe said. ‘In the days of Archbishop Parker.’
Brickley’s eyes narrowed still further. ‘Who was Master of the Music?’
‘Master Bull.’ Marlowe’s eyes glinted with the memory of the merry dance he and his fellows had led that well-meaning man.
‘Tell me, Master Marlowe,’ the bishop circled his man in the room over the chapterhouse, ‘can you still carry a tune in a bucket?’
Marlowe looked up at the saint in the window, who looked enigmatically back. It was hard to think of anything that sounded right without a few trebles and a rumbling bass. Catches would work, but he didn’t think this was the right setting. In the end, he decided and cleared his throat, then sang, ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For He hath regarded, the lowliness of His handmaiden.’ As the golden notes of Byrd and Tallis rolled out, he tried to keep his mind off the constant conundrum with which the choristers had badgered Thomas Bull; why were they singing a song a lady is singing to God? If they could sing this song, Master Bull, why can’t they have girls in the choir? This could bring the organ master to his knees in frustration and Marlowe’s voice had a smile in it as he brought the music to a gentle close.
For a moment, there appeared to be a tear in the old man’s eye, but he sniffed and brushed it away. ‘Very well,’ he said, a little converted by Marlowe’s performance. ‘Very well.’
‘Tell me,’ Marlowe crossed the room to him, ‘about the shepherds.’
‘Shepherds?’ Brickley repeated.
‘We met some on our way into the town … er … city.’
‘From the north?’ Brickley gripped the man’s sleeve. He suddenly looked greyer. And older. He was already a shadow of the warden of Merton.
‘The north-west, yes.’
‘Damn!’ The bishop hissed, slamming down a prayer book so that the dust jumped on his sideboard. ‘So we’re surrounded.’
‘Surrounded?’ Marlowe echoed. Sheep could give that impression sometimes, probably because they were so notoriously hard to count, but it seemed a little extreme a reaction.
‘Tell me, these men,’ the bishop closed to him again and grabbed a handful of velvet. ‘Did you catch a name at all? What did they say?’
‘One was called Wat,’ Marlowe remembered, gently disengaging the bishop’s clutching hand. ‘He appeared to be their leader.’
‘Ah, that’s just a front.’ The bishop was clearly agitated, pacing the floor, his skirts flying. ‘The man’s a vegetable. No, Simeon’s behind this – you mark my words.’
‘Your Grace …’ Marlowe frowned. One moment he had been talking about a service for the Queen in the cathedral and now he was whispering like a conspirator with a frightened old man.
‘You haven’t told me what they said,’ Brickley interrupted him.
‘They seemed to know we were coming.’
‘Really? What makes you think that?’
‘I showed them the Queen’s cypher and they said they’d seen that before.’
Brickley was nodding slowly. ‘So they have,’ he muttered, ‘so they have.’ He turned suddenly and poured himself a large claret. ‘Drink?’ he offered.
Marlowe shook his head. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked. ‘In the interests of the Queen’s safety …’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’ The churchman looked at Marlowe and then into the middle distance above his head. The same impassive saint met his gaze. ‘You know, Master Marlowe, I had dreams of the See of Canterbury, once. Thomas Cantuar … still sounds good.’ He suddenly frowned. ‘Perhaps not, though, in the case of Becket.’ He crossed to the latticed window, cradling his cup of wine as he went. ‘Look out here,’ he said. ‘What do you see?’