Perfect Shadows

by Siobhan Burke

  That same evening, with the last ounce of will and virtue left in me, I had gone to see an under-choirmaster, one of the few priests that I trusted, one that had not boys of his own, and told him about what had happened to me. I was not prepared for the rage that shook the florid face of the middle-aged divine, nor yet the form that the reaction would take.

  Father Justin commanded me to lower my breeches and hose and whipped me with a birch rod until I bled, for lying, he said, about a respected citizen, an alderman, and a deacon of the church. As I fastened up my clothing I had noted the damp stain soiling the front of Father Justin’s own gown. I left the chamber with much to ponder.

  Only a fortnight or so later, back under the leads of the cathedral roof, I had waited for the alderman. I only came here now to meet him and I missed my retreat, but if things went not awry. . . . Soon enough he was there, settling on the sacking and offering me a gilded trinket. I spurned it sullenly.

  “I care nothing for such trumpery, master,” I told him. His eyebrows raised: most of the pretty boys doted on such gifts and favors. “I wish the scholarship at the King’s School, sir, to go on to the University. But I must gain it soon, before I am too old,” I had continued in a rush, staking all on this throw of the dice. “You have influence, you could help me,” letting my tone convey the merest hint of a threat.

  The man tugged at his beard thoughtfully before replying. I knew what he was thinking, that this course would take me away from Canterbury eventually and at about the time that I would become less attractive to him, too old. “I shall see what I may do,” he replied thoughtfully. “Perhaps my friend Manwood will help.”

  And so I had got my scholarship, and in due time had gone to University, and there learned firstly to resent the way that blood counted more than brains, and only secondly the classics.

  I told of the whipping that I had received my first year there at Cambridge. I had been caught bathing in the river with an older boy and making a sort of casual love. Bathing was forbidden, and that was the charge, no mention made of the other. My companion was the son of a lord and he was warned and let go, while I had been hauled before the assembled members of the college hall. My gown had been stripped from me and I was made to stand against a pillar therein my shabby hose while I was “severely whipped”, in accordance with the rule. The beating was not as rigorous as prescribed, the officer pitying my thin and shivering youth, but still it left me bloodied and weeping with humiliation. I was allowed no food that night and the next day the scene was repeated before my own college. I was then allowed to return to my room, where I lay feverish and sick, with my face to the wall. Cobbler’s son, they had jeered at me. Well that might be, but I would show them, I vowed by every welt, by every drop of blood.

  Later I came to believe that the bathing in the river had only been an excuse. Others bathed and were not whipped: I had been punished for showing up the masters. I began to use my quick wits as a weapon after that, honing my tongue on the others’ most cherished convictions and beliefs. It was this combination of bitter wit and callousness that eventually had brought me to Sir Francis Walsingham’s attention, and that of his nephew, Thomas, but of that I could not yet speak.

  The thought of Walsingham, dressed always in his puritan black brought my rant back to the church.

  “And the Puritans! The puritans are even worse! If there is a more asinine concept than joy being sinful I’ve yet to hear it,” I snorted. “It’s not enough that they must shun delight, but they must be sure that no one else is enjoying the pleasures that they deny themselves! Indeed, it seems the only pleasure of which they do partake is that of making the rest of the world miserable. At least Rome offers a little pageantry and pomp in return for pillaging a man of his means!” I gulped the last of my wine, and went on recklessly.” And the so-called miracles themselves should convince any thinking man that Christ was no more than a conjurer! Why, I know a man, Hariot, that can do as much and more, yet no one names him the Son of God!” Nicolas drew his brows together and gazed at me in consternation.

  “My boy, I would that you not noise these opinions about too freely, or depend overmuch upon friends in high places to protect you. These opinions would be called blasphemy in most circles and could well bring you to the stake.”

  I shook my head. “It is a pretty toy, to be a poet and a playwright. I am prudent enough to put these ideas into the mouths of my characters and hypocrite enough to send these characters all to bad ends. If I avoid the church, at least I pay my pence for penance,” I said, laughing, and was surprised to see that it was nearly dawn again. I stretched, vainly tried to suppress a yawn and shook my head. “I must go. I have to be at the theater all too soon and tomorrow I am expected at Scadbury.”

  It was two weeks before I again returned to my lodgings and I viewed the shabby room with regret. Tom and I had lived under one roof and not spoken, except casually, in all that time. I had been but one of many guests and while Tom seemed to want the breach between us to be kept from public awareness, heal so seemed disinclined to heal it privately. Finally I had cited engagements in the city and fled back to London, hurt and bitter.

  Little puffs of dust rose from the untidy piles of paper on my writing table as I shuffled through them. Tom had not recently made me any gifts of money and my purse was becoming slack indeed, but I could not seem to work. I dropped the pages and prowled around the room for a time, scowling at the greasy kitchen knave who brought my wine and lit my fire, then I sat down again.

  I absentmindedly sharpened two quills into a heap of slivers then gave up entirely. I stripped off my clothing and threw myself onto the bed to sip the cheap Bastard wine, all I could currently afford. Thrift was not a natural virtue for me. I bitterly resented my forced economies, but with the pauper’s death of my fellow playwright, and bitter rival, Robert Greene as example, I fled any course that might land me in prison for debt. I had learned enough of prison in the time I had already spent in Newgate for dueling. My one tentative foray into supplying my wants by coining had led to an abrupt and embarrassing conclusion at the hands of Sir Robert Sidney, across the Channel in Flanders.

  Though I had expected to toss for hours, sleep claimed me almost immediately that night, and I dreamed. I seldom had erotic dreams, but this night I dreamed of Rózsa. In reality I was an indifferent rider at best, but I dreamt that we were riding effortlessly through a wild and desolate countryside, her flowing hair unbound, red-raven-dark and burnished by the sun. She rode ahead, turning back to laugh and beckon, but try as I might, I could not catch up with her.

  Things changed, as things will in dreams, and we were together by a waterfall that roared and shook the ground, where she once again undressed and took me, as though I were the woman and she the man. I woke with a start to realize that the room was candlelit and I was not alone. Rózsa was indeed here, just as I had dreamed. Her head was thrown back and I noticed her pointed canine teeth as she smiled, seeing that I woke. She leaned over, nuzzling my neck, never breaking her rhythm, and I felt the pain of her nipping teeth, fast followed as before by overwhelming bliss. As I drifted back to awareness I heard her dressing.” Please, stay,” I pleaded. “I—I’d fain not be alone this night.” Swiftly she crossed the room and took my hands in hers, leaning over to gently kiss my forehead and eyelids.

  “I know, I know, my Kit. That’s why I am here: your pain called to me. I will return shortly—I am going for food and drink, for you have been neglecting yourself.” She donned her hat, swirled her cloak over her shoulders and with a backward wink to me was out the door. I lay back in my bed, the old, heavily-carved bed that had been an early gift from Tom, and waited. When she returned about half an hour later the watch was calling midnight and I was contemplating the stars over the rooftops. Orion had pulled on a ragged cloak of cloud as he sank into his western bed, trailed by Sirius, his dog, and Saturn, old Father Time. I leapt to my feet as Rózsa pushed the door open then sank back as the blood rushed from my hea
d and the darkness grew on the edges of my sight. Instantly she was beside me, her arms around me.

  “Steady, steady, my love. Did I not say that you had been neglecting yourself? When is the last time that you did eat? Yesterday you think? I think mayhap the day before. Come now and lie back and I will feed you.” She placed her long hand against my chest and pushed me resolutely back into my pillows. She had brought a dozen oysters that she expertly opened, tipping the shells against my lips. She alternated the shellfish with sips of dark red claret and bites of sharp crumbly cheese, occasionally leaning over to lick my lips and kiss me. It was pleasant to be waited on, to feel cared for and safe. She had shed the doublet and slops, and I could feel the hardness of her nipple against my arm through the silk shirt she wore, as I jestingly caught her hand after the sixth oyster.

  “Succubus! I do know the reputation of these things; just what might you intend?” She laughed, opening another.

  “I intend, my love, that you will not fail in rising to my will! What else?” I laughed, for I was indeed rising, drawn to her vitality, her assurance, as helpless as a moth before a candle. She drew the mismatched bed curtains with quick graceful tugs and enfolded me in her arms. When I woke the next morning she had gone.

  Chapter 4

  The weeks passed into months. I wrote, I took my turns prompting rehearsals at the playhouse, even sometimes treading the boards myself, and casually bedded a few young men among the players, but more from habit than desire. I visited Scadbury frequently, but never had opportunity to speak to Tom away from Frizer’s triumphant presence. More than once I found myself regretting the prohibition upon his murder that Rózsa had pronounced that January morning.

  I was an even more frequent visitor to Crosby Place, a guest of the guests of the Lord Mayor, spending many wonderful evening hours with my hosts in scholarly pursuits and hours even more wondrous alone with Rózsa in pursuits of a more earthy nature. Von Poppelau knew and seemed to approve of our coupling and I did not wish to disturb things with questions and risk losing all. Often we went out together, Rózsa dressed always as a young man, but only at night, never before twilight.

  I continued working on Hero and Leander, but it was Tom’s poem and I found the delight I took in it thoroughly tarnished. About mid-April, upon returning from one of those unsatisfying visits with Tom I wrote furiously for a time, then studied my words:

  Love is not full of pity, as men say,

  But deaf and cruel where he means to prey.

  I threw down my pen, spattering the page, and snatched up my cloak. I took the stairs two at a time and strode into the street, heading for Crosby Place.

  Not far from my lodgings a shadow stepped from an alley and tugged at my arm. I jerked away and dropped a hand to the hilt of my sword, turning to face my assailant.

  “My, my,” the small man said, with a supercilious grin. “Touchy, aren’t we, Kit?” I recognized Robin Poley, who had taught me the ropes of spying for Sir Francis Walsingham. I’d heard that he was back in England, working for Robert Cecil, who had gathered up the fallen reins of power when Sir Francis had died.

  “I’m rather late for an appointment, Robin,” I told him, backing away. He followed.

  “Your new friends, is it? Oh, I know that you think you have done with the game, sweet Kit, but be assured the game has not done with you!”

  “Go away Robin! I’ll have none of it.” I started to walk and he trotted after.

  “You’d do well to heed me, Marlowe,” he panted. “You think your fame or your patron or your new friends will save you? Naught can—if your old friends are forgot! I could drop many a word about how certain names found their way into Walsingham’s ear! Men have burned because of you and their friends crave bloody vengeance. Your position is perilous, Kit! You’re a known atheist, sodomite, blasphemer—”

  “And you’re a known knave! Leave off, Robin!” I walked faster. As I left him scowling behind me, I recalled how I had gotten involved in what he had called “the game” several years before.

  It was in London, the streets muddy with the promise of spring. I had been invited to attend upon Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queen’s Secretary, one of the most powerful men in the country. As I waited in the anteroom, one of a large number, I gazed out of the window, startled to see a form that I thought I knew from Cambridge. But surely not: that blackmailing boy had left when his father died, and what business could he have with the Secretary? For that matter, what business had I? I brushed my nervous fears aside and resolved myself to wait.

  When I was shown into the chamber some time later I gasped at the sight of the young man lounging in the window seat. Adonis, I thought to myself, or Eros, the god of Love himself. That hair, like so many strands of the finest, palest gold, skin like lilies and roses, so fine and fair that the merest touch could leave a bruise. . . .

  Sir Francis cleared his throat harshly and I swiveled my gaze to the man seated behind the table, a table littered with papers, pens, and broken wax. The man himself loomed even though he was not above middle-height, and seated besides. His gown was somber, but of the finest materials and set off by a narrow ruff of peerless lace. The face, with it’s Spaniard’s coloring, was sad, but the eyes! I had seen opaque eyes like that once before, turbid and blotched, in the face of a man pulled from the River Cam, two days drowned. I shuddered slightly in spite of myself and thought that I heard a faint chuckle from the direction of the window seat. After an hour or so of intense interrogation, I was dismissed from the Secretary’s presence. Adonis, who had been introduced as Walsingham’s nephew Tom, followed and laid his tapered and ring-laden fingers upon my arm as soon as we stepped outdoors.

  “Come, I will buy you some dinner. Facing my uncle is hungry work, but it can pay well,” he said, smoothing the harebell-blue velvet of his doublet, a blue, I noted dazedly, that exactly matched those large, golden-fringed eyes. I was intensely conscious that this, my newest doublet, though of wine colored velvet with a cherry-red silk lining, was sadly worn. It was ill-fitting enough to show that it had been made for someone else and that I had acquired it at second hand. My trunkhose were a poor match and my hose clumsily mended. My boots were good, though. That was one advantage to having a cobbler in the family—you always went well shod. He led me to the courtyard where my own hired hack and a blood mare stood side by side.

  Within an hour we were comfortably lodged in a private room dining on the richest fare I had ever seen. Wine in abundance, flesh, fish and fowl, all cooked to perfection and liberally spiced, set off with sweetmeats and fancy breads. After the plain food and small beer of the college buttery, this seemed like heaven. “The more like heaven for the company,” I thought, unable to tear my eyes from the wanton, wayward godling before me. In the light of his sudden smile I realized I had spoken the thought aloud.

  “He wishes me to spy on my fellow students, then?” I asked quickly, to cover my confusion, and found my voice already beginning to slur from the unaccustomed strength of the wine.

  “Spy? My sweet Kit—I may call you Kit, may I not? How dramatic you are! No, of course not, but if you should happen to hear anything that he should know—for the safety of the Queen and the realm, well, he would see that you did not lose by it. Why, he often employs me to deliver messages for him, between London and Paris. You must come with me to Paris, one day, sweet, sweet, Kit. My uncle said that you were . . . like me. . . .” the voice, grown husky, trailed off, and in the sinking light of the candles Tom leant towards me, shoving the table out of the way, reaching out his hand, but shyly, giving me every chance to pull back in the case that his uncle had been misinformed. But he had not been, the desire was there in my eyes, in my ragged breathing, unquestionably rising in my groin, and I saw Tom make his decision. I could read it in his eyes, in the slight nod of his head. He allowed our lips to brush, then turned his head, as if in shame, and all the while his shameless hand was threading its way into the intricacies of my clothing.

  It
was a fine line to draw, a knife’s edge to walk, but Tom was a practiced player, and a novice such as I stood no chance against him. Soon I had been teased into a state close to madness, as he provoked the dominance verging on violence that his own needs demanded. Later, sweat-soaked and sated, still entwined together, he developed in detail what would be required of me in Walsingham’s service and the rewards I could expect.

  It meant a new life for me. I traveled to Paris and to Rheims, traveled into danger to gather names of those Catholics who spoke of returning to England, of working to return England to the Catholic fold, and also those who whispered of the Queen of Scots. Until now I had been largely untouched by the religious fervor that swirled through the University, and I told myself that it mattered little to me what happened to the men whose names I so callously dropped into the Secretary’s ear, men whose trust I abused. What mattered was the coin in my pocket, the food in my stomach, and the fine clothing on my back.

  I had my portrait painted. I looked every inch the gentleman, I thought, in my new slashed doublet, made new for me and trimmed with gilt buttons, my falling band and cuffs of cobweb lawn, my left hand tucked carefully away to hide my ink-stained fingers. But when the painter, had asked me for a motto to inscribe the work, I had found myself unable to stop laughing, laughter tinged with hysteria. “Quod me nutrit me destruit!” I had gasped: That which feeds me, destroys me. And then later, standing before the Masters, resplendent in my new affluence, to be told that my degree was to be withheld from me, on the grounds that I was one of these selfsame religious maniacs with whom I had associated only upon Walsingham’s request! It was not to be borne! Within two months I had, by the Council’s own demand, been granted my degree. I spurned the expected Holy Orders (a fine divine I would make!) and took London by storm with my play Tamburlaine.